THE LONGEST YARD

The Longest Yard is a 2005 American sports comedy remake of the 1974 picture of the same name starring Adam Sandler, Burt Reynolds, Chris Rock, Nelly and Michael Irvin and directed by Peter Segal.

Paul Crewe (Adam Sandler) is a former NFL player dishonored for shaving points in a big game, after a heated argument with his well-off girlfriend Lena (Courtney Cox) about his failure. He locks her in a cabinet, gets drunk, and goes riding in her Bentley Continental GT throughout San Diego. After completely damaging the car, he gets arrested for three years in Ellenville Penitentiary in Texas, as it was set by the jail's superintendent Hazen (James Cromwell).

In prison, the superintendent asks Paul to aid the jail guards' football team. After being reluctant a bit, Paul decides to assist him. He informs the superintendent that what his players needs is a tune-up match. This gives the warden an idea: Paul, with the help of fellow inmate Caretaker (Chris Rock), will make a team out of the prisoners for them to play as their tune-up match. He starts off with a poorly arranged team, before being noticed by another inmate, former football player Nate Scarborough (Reynolds), who decides to help him by coaching the players.

Paul, Nate, and Caretaker find a rating scheme on the criminals (up to five stars, depending on how prone to aggression they are). They all set out to find and employ some five star inmates: linebacker Joey Battle (Goldberg); fullback Turley (Singh Rana); and at safety, Torres (Lobo Sebastian). Paul realizes he needs more players. Caretaker suggests that it is due to their lack of "brothers", as they only have one currently on their team defensive lineman Switowski (Sapp), an brainless, child-like, and friendly but large strongman.They go to the black prisoners leader Deacon Moss (Irvin), who declares that none of them want to play on his players because of Paul's point-shaving account. So Paul challenges them to a 1 on 1 basketball game where if Paul wins, the men will join the team. They play basketball and call their own fouls, with Paul getting physically punished during the match. Despite Paul losing, one of the black inmates, Earl Megget (Nelly), is overwhelmed by Paul's flexibility and joins the players. Megget becomes the team's running back by impressing Paul with his running ability.

After a tip from Unger (David Patrick Kelly) that Paul and Megget are the only real offensive threats on the team, Captain Knauer (Fichtner), the guards' quarterback, decides that the guards should try to stop Megget by trying to get him to attack one of them and sticking them in lone captivity. Three guards Dunham (Austin), Garner (Bosworth) and Engelheart (Nash) try to irritate Megget by using racial slurs and making him pick up books they dropped on the ground frequently. The guards give up after he does not react to their nuisance. Seeing this, Moss and Cheeseburger Eddy (Crews), convince the rest of black prisoners to join the football team. The warden and guards go to extreme lengths to stop Paul's squad, even flooding their field, but the players overcomes these problems.

Caretaker advises that since the guards have been playing dirty that the prisoners should swap Engelheart's anabolic steroids for estrogen pills, examining x-rays of guards with broken bones, and stealing tapes of the guards older games. The guards Garner, Engelheart, Holland and Lambert (Romanowski) then make a decision to do something about Paul, and have Unger plant a bomb, cloaked as a radio, in his chamber. After the final day of preparation for the big game, Caretaker leaves early and places a gift for Paul in his chamber and accidentally sets off the bomb, and is killed in the explosion. During game day, the prisoners overcome a rough opening and end the first half with the score tied.

The superintendent is enraged, and informs Paul that if he doesn't lose then he would be framed for the murder of Caretaker. Paul says meanly, "Fine, but you get a 2 touchdown lead and you coast". The superintendent accepts to Paul's face, but he tells the guards' quarterback to get ahead by three touchdowns and inflict as much pain as possible. After the guards score two touchdowns (and Paul steps out faking injury), they start hurting players before scoring a third touchdown. After the guards injure two of the players, Paul goes back in. The prisoners pay no attention to Paul, letting him get sacked twice and forcing him to run the ball himself. After losing his helmet and still getting the first down, Paul accepts his interference and they rely on him again. They get back in it, but Megget gets hurt. Scarborough comes in for one play as replacement, and scores a touchdown off a trick play involving a drop called a Fumblerooski. They make a decision to go for the two point exchange, and they succeed. They get up to the line and seem to be baffled, and Paul and Coach opening arguing. The play is really a trap, and then Moss gets the snap and passes it to Paul, who scores the winning exchange. Finally Captain Knauer respects Paul's move and lets him know he will testify that Paul had nothing to do with Caretaker's death.

The superintendent comes over and begins to scold Captain Knauer for losing a fixed match and notices that Paul is heading towards the exit along with the fans. Pulling a sniper over, he asks that Paul be shot for attempting to escape. The sniper hesitates because of the many people near Paul, so the warden grabs the gun and passes it to Knauer, demanding that he should take the shot. Knauer sights up Paul, but is reluctant, calling out Paul's name a number of times to get him to stay. Paul does stop, but he was actually going to pick up the ball and head back. Knauer furiously hands the rifle back to the warden and exits. Paul and Scarborough head back towards the locker room and agree that they should tell the others where Unger is hiding. As the superintendent watches them leave, Moss and Battle pour a cooler of Gatorade on Hazen in a mockery of a typical football game celebration

It was released on March 27, 2005. The film did well at the box office. Its $47.6 million dollar opening weekend was the largest of Sandler's career and only second to The Day After Tomorrow. It was rated 4.8/10 from 162 reviews counted by Rotten Tomatoes.