Surprises from The Longest Yard

In Hollywood’s latest refusal to leave well enough alone, Happy Madison teamed up with Paramount to drag The Longest Yard through the filth of Early 21st Century American Cinema. Surprisingly, it came out slightly cleaner than one would expect. It must have had something to do with the six people that landed Exec Producer credits.

Before I offer any more insight, let me provide two suggestions for your potential viewing of this film: don’t expect much, and bring a drink. I did both, and actually enjoyed The Longest Yard.

Here’s a list of things I expected to see:

• amped up hits that would leave a cracked out rhinoceros in a very serious coma.
• a kaleidoscope of slow-motion shots that seek to introduce gravity to an otherwise dry scene.
• Chris Rock making the racist jokes that Whitey thinks, but can’t manage to say.
• homophobia
• the biggest man I’ve ever seen.
• people who learn something about themselves and change their perspective on things.

Believe it or not, all six showed up. Special credit for the third and fourth, highlighted by a “slave” joke (seriously), and wholesale condemnations of homosexuality too numerous to even recount. But in a film that deals with lots of burly men smashing into each other in a penitentiary environment, it’s best to keep your distance. 

As to the fifth (the biggest guy), it kind of scared me. I always assumed I could at least conceive of what the biggest person would look like – at least ballpark. As it would happen, I was wrong. By a lot.

Here are some things I didn’t expect to see:

• a fullback trap (for those of you who don’t know football, pretend I wrote “a very boring football play”)
• challenging roles for some of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors
• Courtney Cox’s CLEAVAGE