History Film / TheLongestYard

''The Longest Yard'' is a 1974 movie starring Burt Reynolds, that was later remade in 2005 starring Creator/AdamSandler. It combines the two things men care the most about: prisons and football.

** Apparently, this was also the reason for the point-shaving in Crewe's backstory, as he was "in a bad way with some worse people," apparently involving gambling debts. When confiding in his team that he did indeed throw the game when he was in the NFL, Crewe claims that they were prepared to kill him, and he wishes that he'd let them. Apparently, they meant business.

* RuleOfCool: Remake's Battle is number 10 for Mean Machine. His number is represented as the Roman numeral X.

* TheStoolPigeon: Unger.

* KarmaHoudini: Unger in the original.

--> '''Paul:''' What about the lovable, beautiful woman?

* {{Blackmail}}: In the end, to make sure the guards win, the warden attempts to blackmail Crewe by threatening to [[spoiler:pin Crewe as an accomplice to Caretaker's murder]].
** Apparently, this was also the reason for the point-shaving in Crewe's backstory, as he was "in a bad way with some worse people," apparently involving gambling debts. Crewe claims that he wishes they'd have killed him instead after he went through with it. Apparently, they meant business.

* TheCameo: Jim Rome and [[Creator/{{ESPN}} Chris Berman]] work the broadcast of the game.

* CoolOldGuy: Nate Scarborough and Skitchy. "He's been here so long, he knows where everything is."
** "That ain't necessarily a good thing, now is it?"

* ActorAllusion: Rob Schneider plays one of the good behavior inmates allowed to watch the game from the stands. He cheers on the team at one point by saying "You can do it!" like his character in ''TheWaterboy''. Which was another movie where Adam Sandler played a football player, oddly enough.
* AllStarCast: While not as grand as some examples, the remake is loaded with professional wrestlers and hip-hop artists. And some former NFL players.

* TheDanza: According to the remake's credits, guards Papajohn and Holland are respectively played by Michael Papajohn and Todd Holland.

* HeyItsThatGuy: As well as Adam Sandler we get Farmer Hoggett as the prison warden, Burt Reynolds from the original film, Stone Cold Steve Austin as a guard and Bill Goldberg as an inmate.
** There's also Chris Rock as Caretaker, Tracy Morgan as "Ms. Tucker," Eddie Bunker as Skitchy, and Cloris Leachman as Lynette the secretary. In addition to Stone Cold, you have Kevin Nash, Bill Romanowski, Brian Bosworth and quintessential HeyItsThatGuy William Fichtner as guards. Joining Goldberg on the cons' side, you have Terry Crews, Bob Sapp, rapper Nelly, wrestler Dalip "Great Khali" Singh, and Michael freaking Irvin. Oh, and Unger was T-Bird in TheCrow.
* HeelFaceTurn: Crewe himself, formerly playing this game only so the warden won't pin more hard time on him, eventually develops a relationship with the team that becomes so strong that, in the end, he refuses to abandon them.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Only one black player (other than Swatowski) agrees to play in the game. The guards see this one player as a threat and taunt him with racist comments and other bullying while he cleans up in the library, hoping he will strike a guard and not be able to play, eliminating him as a threat. However, other black inmates witnessed the harassment this one player received at the hands of the guards and, wanting to get back at the guards, agreed to play with Crewe, thus giving Crewe a much better chance of winning than he'd had with just the original black player.
** Another player joins after a guard screws him out of the last 15 minutes of his TV time, while another (the 7'1" tall Turley) recalls guard Papajohn taunting him, and agrees to play when he learns that Papajohn will be on the guards' team.
* HonorBeforeReason: In the remake, Crewe challenges inmate Deacon Moss (former NFL receiver Michael Irvin) to a basketball game. If Crewe wins, Deacon joins the football team. Deacon wins, Crewe walks away. During the game, Moss commits numerous fouls that would get you thrown out of the game at any level of organized basketball. Crewe, however, never calls for the violation on any of Deacon's cheap shots. \\

Finally, on the "Next point wins" possession with the ball in Moss' hands, Crewe strips him cleanly and Deacon calls a foul. Crewe relinquishes the ball despite the horribly fallacious call, and Moss ends the game with an emphatic slam dunk-- Crewe doesn't bother to defend, knowing he could never win.

** Crewe's loss went even further in working out for him later in the film. After the guards find out that Meggett has joined the team, they attempt to provoke him into a physical altercation, using racial slurs and verbal taunting as he cleans the library. Deacon Moss and Cheeseburger Eddy witness the entire incident, and this convinces them (as well as the other inmates in "The Jungle," as Deacon called it) to join the team.

** Although it appears the the inmates are all well aware that he's doing this (except for the [[spoiler: bomb]] part). Crewe even requests that the Warden keep Unger off the cons' practice field. It doesn't go well.

* RedemptionEqualsAffliction: After Crewe [[spoiler: sincerely has a change of heart about throwing the game at the end of the film, his offensive line decides to send him a message and refuse to block for him on consecutive plays, resulting in Crewe taking two (painful) sacks in a row.]] He realizes that not only will they never win like this, but [[spoiler: he has to prove to the team that he honestly is on their side.]]\\

* RemakeCameo: Burt Reynolds, who starred in the original, as Nate Scarborough in the remake - an unusually large part for this trope.

* SituationalSexuality: Brucie in the remake, who actually has a wife on the outside, is at one point caught on camera getting intimate with one of the "[[CampGay girls]]."
-->'''Brucie:''' [as he's about to kick off towards the end of the game] Jesus Christ, my savior... if you help me out with this one, I promise to stop cheating on my wife with black guys. Amen.
** There's also this little exchange in the remake when Caretaker first meets Paul:

--> '''Caretaker:''' Well, you're gonna have to lower your standards on the "beautiful" part, and on the "woman" part. *points at the "girls" table (all effeminate male inmates, one of whom smiles, waves lovingly and says "Heeeeey.")*

* UnnecessaryRoughness: Oh yeah. Justified in this case, as most of the inmates are playing just to get back at the guards. They end up wasting their first offensive series by hurting their least favorite guards instead of running the plays as called.

''The Longest Yard'' is a 1974 movie starring Creator/BurtReynolds, that was later remade in 2005 starring Creator/AdamSandler. It combines the two things men care the most about: prisons and football.

* KarmaHoudini : Unger in the original.

** Although it appears the the inmates are all well aware that he's doing this (except for the bomb part). Crewe even requests that the Warden keep Unger off the cons' practice field. It doesn't go well.

* RedemptionEqualsAffliction: After Crewe [[spoiler: sincerely has a change of heart about throwing the game at the end of the film, his offensive line decides to send him a message and refuse to block for him on two consecutive plays, resulting in Crewe taking two (painful) sacks in a row.]] He realizes that not only will they never win like this, but [[spoiler: he has to prove to the team that he honestly is on their side.]] On 4th and 22, Crewe utilizes a QB draw and manages to beat the entire guards' team single-handedly to pick up a first down [[{{Badass}} (without his helmet, no less)]]. He takes a hard hit after gaining around 25 yards, when he could have easily let the team punt the ball away, and his redemption is earned.

** The guards' team gets rough, too, due to being ordered by the warden to beat the inmates into submission after they've acquired a 3 TD lead.

--> '''Caretaker:''' ... I think that's a ten [out of ten]
--> '''Paul:''' Let's go with a ten.
--> '''Swatowski:''' [[FunnyMoments I'm sorry... I broke-ed-ed your toy...]]

* WhoNeedsOvertime: At the end of the game, the Convicts chose to go for two points and the win instead of just kicking the extra point to send the game into overtime.
** This ''is'' discussed in the movie. As they put it "We're convicts. We always go for it all."

* TheMole: Unger, an inmate, serves as this, leaking information about Crewe's training and recruiting to the guards, [[spoiler: and eventually planting a small-time bomb (intended for Crewe) that ends up killing Caretaker]].
** Although they are all well aware that he's doing this.

'''''The Longest Yard''''' is a 1974 movie starring BurtReynolds, that was later remade in 2005 starring Creator/AdamSandler. It combines the two things men care the most about: prisons and football.

However, this game becomes SeriousBusiness for the convicts, who are seeing this as an opportunity to get back at the guards for all the abuse they've been getting over the years. With a former Heisman trophy winner (played by Reynolds in the remake) as the team's coach and a connection for sports equipment from the outside (played by Chris Rock in the remake), the "Mean Machine", as they come to be called, end up making a game out of it.

** Also a couple of sportswriters, including [[SportsIllustrated Peter King]]

* BringMyBrownPants: In the remake, Switowski lays out the Guard's running back, Dunham, with a clothesline tackle to epic it makes him shit himself.

* HonorBeforeReason: In the remake, Crewe challenges inmate Deacon Moss (former NFL receiver Michael Irvin) to a basketball game. If Crewe wins, Deacon joins the football team. Deacon wins, Crewe walks away. During the game, Moss commits numerous fouls that would get you thrown out of the game at any level of organized basketball. Crewe, however, never calls for the violation on any of Deacon's cheap shots. Finally, on the "Next point wins" possession with the ball in Moss' hands, Crewe strips him cleanly and Deacon calls a foul. Crewe relinquishes the ball despite the horribly fallacious call, and Moss ends the game with an emphatic slam dunk-- Crewe doesn't bother to defend, knowing he could never win.

* RedemptionEqualsAffliction: After Crewe [[spoiler: sincerely has a change of heart about throwing the game at the end of the film, his offensive line decides to send him a message and refuse to block for him on two consecutive plays, resulting in Crewe taking two (painful) sacks in a row.]] He realizes that not only will they never win like this, but [[spoiler: he has to prove to the team that he honestly is on their side.]] On 4th and 22, Crewe utilizes a QB draw and manages to beat the entire guards' team single-handedly to pick up a first down [[{{Badass}} (without his helmet, no less)]]. He takes a hard hit after gaining around 25 yards, when he could have easily let the team punt the ball away, and his his redemption is earned.

* RedemptionEqualsAffliction: After Crewe [[spoiler: sincerely has a change of heart about throwing the game at the end of the film, his offensive line decides to send him a message and refuse to block for him on two consecutive plays, resulting in Crewe taking two (painful) sacks in a row.]] He realizes that not only will they never win like this, but [[spoiler: he has to prove to the team that he honestly is on their side.]] On 4th and 22, Crewe utilizes a QB draw and manages to beat the entire guards' team single-handedly to pick up a first down [[{{Badass}} (without his helmet, no less)]]. He takes a hard hit after gaining around 25 yards, when he could have easily let the team punt the ball away, and his teammates realize the nature of the situation.

* RedemptionEqualsAffliction: After Crewe [[spoiler: sincerely has a change of heart about throwing the game at the end of the film, his offensive line decides to send him a message and refuse to block for him on two consecutive plays, resulting in Crewe taking two (painful) sacks in a row.]] He realizes that not only will they never win like this, but [[spoiler: he has to prove to the team spoiler: that he honestly is on their side.]] On 4th and 22, Crewe utilizes a QB draw and manages to beat the entire guards' team single-handedly to pick up a first down [[{{Badass}} (without his helmet, no less)]]. He takes a hard hit after gaining around 25 yards, when he could have easily let the team punt the ball away, and his point is made.

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: Crewe invokes this trope at halftime, when the warden threatens to frame Crewe for conspiracy to murder Caretaker. His ultimatum-- receiver an additional 25 years on his sentence, or throw the game. Crewe reluctantly chooses the latter. To start the 3rd quarter, he throws several bad passes, and one inexplicably poor toss to his running back. His teammates realize what's happening and verbally berate him on the bench as the guards begin to dominate the game.]]

* AllStarCast: While not as grand as some examples, the remake is loaded with professional wrestlers and hip-hop artists. And some former NFL players

** Apparently, this was also the reason for the point-shaving in Crewe's backstory, as he was "in a bad way with some worse people," apparently involving gambling debts.

* BuffySpeak: When asked by guards to report on the inmate team's progress, all Unger has to say about the speedy Meggett is "He's so ''fast''! He makes other fast people look... not so fast!"

** "That ain't necessarily a good thing now is it?"

* RealMenWearPink: Torres, one of the inmates in the remake, loves watching ''The View''. Not that he's a fan of the show itself necessarily, he just thinks Joy Behar is absolutely hilarious.

* SituationalSexuality: Brucie in the remake, who actually has a wife on the outside, is at one point caught on camera getting intimate with one of the "[[CampGay girls]]".

* ThrowingTheFight: In Crewe's backstory, he was banned from football for point shaving, which he did to cover gambling debts. The warden tries to get him to throw the big game by hanging Caretaker's murder over him. [[spoiler:Crewe decides to win after a talk with Skitchy -- see WasItReallyWorthIt below]].