Stuff by Steve

Someone out there seems to think that we haven’t remade enough Burt Reynolds movies. I haven’t seen the original, but the 2005 version left a lot to be desired. At first glance this was a standard sports movie - in this case, the washed-up, disillusioned former football star makes a mess of his life and winds up in prison. There he experiences the oppression of a corrupt system and ends up putting together a team of inmates to fight back “on the field.” Of course, his past comes back to haunt him, and the inmates’ self-esteem and his own integrity end up on the line. How does it all turn out? Allegedly, in the original film, that was something that you actually cared about. In this case, not so much. The characters weren’t really deep enough to become attached to, and the plot was too basic to even be interesting. The jokes were funny, but fairly coarse, and the sinister themes and dramatic scenes seemed out of place in the face of the low-brow humour. I will say, though, that the plethora of pro wrestlers that were cast as players were impressively huge, literally filling the screen, with the addition of a few little-known actors that could only be described as gargantuan. Reynolds had more than just a cameo, and he was really the highlight of the movie, acting-wise, but ultimately offered too little to the bigger picture (ha ha). In the end, the movie tried to take itself seriously but failed. I think Adam Sandler did better as a hockey player.