Disgraced pro football quarterback Paul Crewe lands in a Texas federal penitentiary, where manipulative Warden Hazen recruits him to advise the institution's football team of prison guards. Crewe suggests a tune-up game which lands him quarterbacking a crew of inmates in a game against the guards. Aided by incarcerated ex-NFL coach and player Nate Scarborough, Crewe and his team must overcome not only the bloodthirstiness of the opposition, but also the corrupt warden trying to fix the game against them.
People will go see The Longest Yard for all sorts of reasons -- its lively humor, the current of violence that's just under the surface, its message of underdog racial reconciliation, or the fact that there's no actual football to watch on TV.
– Andrew O'Hehir,
Salon.com,
31 May 2005
fresh:
The pleasure is entirely like eating cake made from cake mix. It's not like you don't know how it's going to turn out, or how it tasted the last time you ate it.
– Michael O'Sullivan,
Washington Post,
27 May 2005
rotten:
Whether it's the sight of Reynolds squeezed painfully into a football uniform or the endless footballs-to-the-crotch and tired gay jokes, The Longest Yard has the feeling of mutton dressed as lamb.