The Longest Yard (2005) - A few laughs register in shallow, overlong MTV-produced sports comedy remake

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Adam Sandler and co-stars lined up in prison football gear on this testosterone-booming poster for Peter Segal's The Longest Yard

An ex-football star lands himself an extended prison sentence, and incarcerated in a middle-of-nowhere facility the warden has an idea of a quality prisoner's football team. A game against the guards looms in the distance.

The Longest Yard is written by Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air (2009)), based on the same-titled 1974 major hit, which also starred Burt Reynolds (Tempted (2001)), and directed by Peter Segal (Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994)).
It is an MTV production made during the TV station's prime, which results in a shallow, lowbrow concoction, peopled with stars to cover the most vital movie-going demographics in North America: whites and blacks, with most coming from the younger generations. In line with MTV's concept it also features loads of music, both original songs and hits from past and present, noise and annoying music video type flash editing.
The Longest Yard made me laugh a couple of times, - mostly in scenes featuring the 'giant', Dalip Singh (Get Smart (2008)), who is treated as a freak and even subtitled, - and it curiously has Tracy Morgan (Why Stop Now? (2012)) as a gay prison cheerleader. But the movie is overlong, and it culminates in a football match that feels as long as a real football match.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 82 mil. $
Box office: 190.3 mil. $
= Minor flop (returned 2.32 times its cost)
[The Longest Yard premiered 19 May (Hollywood, California) and runs 113 minutes. Shooting took place in New Mexico and in California, including Los Angeles in and around July 2004. The film opened #2, behind holdover hit Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, to a 47.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weeks in the top 5 (#2-#4-#5) and grossed 158.1 mil. $ (83.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 8.2 mil. $ (4.3 %) and Australia with 8.1 mil. $ (4.3 %). The film almost certainly turned healthy profits later with home video sales and TV rights deals. Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to two notches higher than this one. Segal returned with Get Smart (2008). Adam Sandler (Murder Mystery (2019)) returned with an uncredited cameo in Deuce Bigelow: European Vacation (2005) and starring in Click (2006); Reynolds in The Dukes of Hazzard (2005); Chris Rock (The Week Of (2018)) with a voice performance in Madagascar (2005), in Red Hot Chili Peppers music video Hump de Bump (2006) and physically in a movie in his own I Think I Love My Wife (2007). The Longest Yard is rotten at 31 % with a 4.78/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Longest Yard?

The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) - Lowbrow racing fun in the rowdy South

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+ Best Car Movie of the Year

The blue-skied poster for Jay Chandrasekhar's The Dukes of Hazzard

QUICK REVIEW:

Three cousins and their uncle run a moonshine business in Hazzard County, Georgia, but they are challenged by the local County Commissioner and other obstacles.

This review might be a little overly positively inclined towards Dukes due to the fact that I was pretty hung over when I saw it. Otherwise I would most likely have been a bit harder on it.
- Because real, actual laughs are few and far between in this supposed (action) comedy, based on the CBS TV-series of the same name that ran from 1979-85. It is poorly written, by John O'Brien (Starsky & Hutch (2004)), with Jonathan L. Davis contributing story, and it works the same drill throughout.
But it is also a cozy, charming time with some cool car chases, which last almost the entire film, - and Burt Reynolds (Boogie Nights (1997)). Jessica Simpson (Blonde Ambition (2007)) makes her feature acting debut here and successfully 'acts' her way to many male audience members as the Southern sex kitten Daisy Duke.
The film is directed by Chicagoan Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers (2001)).

 

Related post:

 

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 111 mil. $
=  Minor flop
[Dukes premiered at #1 in the US and ended up scoring 80.2 mil. $ (72 % of the total gross) there, despite mostly bad reviews. - So its problem mainly was that it wasn't very successful outside America.]

What do you think of The Dukes of Hazzard?
And Chandrasekhar's other films?

The Cannonball Run (1981) - Needham's major buck race bonanza

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Excitement and star parade on the high-spirited poster for Hal Needham's The Cannonball Run

QUICK REVIEW:

A row of charismatic groups in different cars each wants to win the outlawed Cannonball Run that races across the States.

This silly, nearly plotless crazy comedy/car movie was able to gather a surprising cast, which causes some laughs and entertainment value and in the process salvages the boundlessly pointless film from sinking as dead weight.
Roger Moore (A View to a Kill (1985)), worn out Dean Martin (Rio Bravo (1959)) and Sammy Davis Jr. (Ocean's 11 (1960)), Burt Reynolds (Boogie Nights (1997)) and Dom Deluise (Blazing Saddles (1974)) along with Farrah Fawcett (Logan's Run (1976)) and Jackie Chan (The Legend of Drunken Master (1994)) help to make Cannonball Run, - despite its obvious idiocy, - an enjoyable lowbrow comedy.
It is directed by stunt man legend/director Hal Needham (Cannonball Run II (1984)), produced by the Hong Kong-based Golden Harvest company, and it's based on an actual outlawed race, which was held twice in the 70s.

Related review:

Hal Needham: The Villain/Cactus Jack (1979) or, The Wackadoodle West!

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 16-18 mil. $
Box office: 89.8 mil. $ (USA and Germany only)
= Huge hit
[Despite bad reviews, audiences loved this film: It made 72.1 mil. $ in the US and 17.6 mil. $ in Germany alone. It was the 6th biggest box office hit in America that year.]

What do you think of The Cannonball Run?

City Heat (1984) - Eastwood and Reynolds wrestle dispassionately in Benjamin's messy period affair

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A nostalgia/buddy poster that seems to actively want to invoke George Roy Hill's super-successful The Sting (1973), for Richard Benjamin's City Heat

QUICK REVIEW:

Some murders, corruption, torture, prostitutes and fistfights in Kansas City of the 1930's.

- So superficially and indifferently can the plot of City Heat accurately be summed up. Although its teaming up of Clint Eastwood (In the Line of Fire (1993)) and Burt Reynolds (Boogie Nights (1997)) theoretically could have proven a big pleasure, - in a loony car-movie, for instance, - here they are far from it. In fact this may be Eastwood's poorest film as an actor.
City Heat is a forced noir-ish gangster burb, which is unpleasant and coarse to boot. The designs and costumes look like a costume party. The film is truly a dud.
It was originally written by Blake Edwards (Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)), who was fired as director of the film, and it was rewritten by Richard Benjamin (Made in America (1993)) under the pseudonym Sam O. Brown, who became the director, while Edwards renounced the finished film.
Eastwood got 4 mil. $ for doing City Heat, while Reynolds' jaw broke in an accident on the first day, causing him to be restricted to a liquid diet that made him lose 30 pounds during the production. He was conclusively suspected of having AIDS in the tabloids, and also developed an addiction to analgesics [painkillers]. - Bummer!

Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds even look sour and lost on this German poster for Richard Benjamin's City Heat

Watch the loud, inane trailer for the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 38.3 mil. $ (US only)
= Flop, though some uncertainty
[City Heat was poorly received upon release, although audiences in America seemed to flock to see it nonetheless. Since foreign box office results are unknown, the flop status is somewhat uncertain.]

What do you think of City Heat?
Is this Clint Eastwood's worst film?
And Burt Reynolds' worst film?

Boogie Nights (1997) - Porn industry drama a major breakthrough for Anderson, Wahlberg

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+ Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Mark Wahlberg

A wealth of characters and situations are crammed into a colorful star on this fine poster for Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights

 
Dirk Diggler is a young man in 1970s America with a heavy quality between his legs that makes him spiral to stardom in Los Angeles' blooming porn industry. But success comes with at a prize.

 

 

Boogie Nights is written, co-produced and directed by Californian master filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (Hard Eight (1996)), based on his mockumentary short film, The Dirk Diggler Story (1988). It is his 2nd feature.

The film is roughly to porn what Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995) is to Vegas: A glitzy semi-fact-based chronicle. A simultaneously glamorous and sober recap of porn's explosion from low-rent smut into major dollars.
Mark Wahlberg (Three Kings (1999)) has one of his career's best parts here and gives a splendid performance in his breakthrough role as donkey dick with limited brains, Dirk Diggler/Eddie Adams (based on real-life porn legend John Holmes). The rest of the cast is so star-studded that you just have to keep watching, especially as many of them deliver outstanding supporting performances:
Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda (2004)) is priceless; and so is Burt Reynolds (Deliverance (1972)) as a porn director. Julianne Moore (The Hours (2002)) is heartbreaking as a porn actress who is also a neglectful mother; and finally Heather Graham (From Hell (2001)) is sugar-sweet as Rollergirl.
Philip Baker Hall (Hard Eight), John C. Reilly (Step Brothers (2008)), William H. Macy (The Sessions (2012)), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote (2005)), Thomas Jane (The Mist (2007)) and Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)) also have enjoyable minor parts.
Photography-wise, Boogie Nights is a study in long, complicated travelings and hard contrast cuts. Fine work by cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood (2007)).
Boogie Nights is a decadent, sexy, incredibly cast, eclectic film. A tour de force in cinematic skill and great period music. It booms with great scenes and wonderful performances, though it is arguably overlong.

 

Related posts:

Paul Thomas Anderson: 2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Phantom Thread (2017) - Anderson's exquisite drama of an English dressmaker and his Alma 

The Master (2012) - Anderson's stunning post-war reflection 

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) - Sandler breaks out of his routine in Anderson's delightful romcom 

1997 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Boogie Nights (1997) - Anderson's irresistible porn 'Casino'

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Hard Eight (1996) - Anderson debuts with downbeat crime drama

 

 

Watch the tantalizing trailer here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 43.1 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.88 times its cost)

[Boogie Nights premiered 11 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 155 minutes. Shooting took place from July - October 1996 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #19 to a 50k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #4 and in 1,003 theaters (different weeks), grossing 26.4 mil. $ (61.3 % of the total gross). It was nominated for 3 Oscars, winning none: It lost Best Supporting Actor (Reynolds) to Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, Supporting Actress (Moore) to Kim Basinger in L.A. Confidential and Original Screenplay to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting. It was also nominated for 2 BAFTAs, a European Film Award, won 1/2 Golden Globe nominations and a National Board of Review award, among many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Anderson returned with 4 videos prior to his theatrical return with Magnolia (1999). Wahlberg returned in The Big Hit (1998); Reynolds in Big City Blues (1997); and Moore in Chicago Cab (1997). Boogie Nights is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Boogie Nights?