'Longest Yard' remake fumbles in its casting

Say Burt Reynolds and you think macho. Say Adam Sandler and you think matzo.

As much as I enjoy Sandler as a comic actor and applaud his dramatic stretches in Punch-Drunk Love (which I loathed) and Spanglish (which I liked a lot), whatever possessed him to remake Reynolds' bone-crusher classic, The Longest Yard? Where Reynolds radiates musk, Sandler radiates mockery.

The difference between Robert Aldrich's 1974 smackdown between convicts and guards on the gridiron and Peter Segal's remake is that between embattled masculinity and playful boyishness.

What makes the new movie almost bearable is the byplay between Sandler and Chris Rock, playing inmate procurement pro Caretaker, who can snag anything from a Big Mac to a bottle of Ketel vodka. (Both enjoy a product-placement close-up.)

Segal's update features Reynolds in a key supporting role and, alas for Sandler, the studly vet has more muscle in his left eyebrow than the young superstar has in his entire body. But this time the material is played strictly for laughs. One of the jokes is that we're supposed to accept Sandler, who is of average build, as washed-up NFL quarterback Paul Crewe.

Ejected from the pros for throwing the game instead of the ball, Crewe starts the film as the boy toy of shrewish rich girl Courteney Cox. In short order he gets soused, steals her Bentley, rams a police car, fails the Breathalyzer test, and lands in the slammer in Texas where the sadistic warden (James Cromwell) pits the cons against former pros now toiling as prison guards.

With a solid supporting cast including rap artist Nelly (as the cons' running back) and former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin, Yard makes the Big House look like Animal House.

Is this the occasion to rail against remakes? Not all are bad, but few are necessary.

Admittedly, last year's Manchurian Candidate updated the original in ways that had political and technological resonance. Likewise the recentish Freaky Friday put today's It-Girl Lindsay Lohan in the role originated by '70s It-Girl Jodie Foster. But the same cannot be said of perfunctory remakes of Alfie and Charade (which was brought to screen in 2002 as The Truth About Charlie).

Nor can the same be said about The Longest Yard, which provides a few laughs, contact endorphins for the pigskin-deprived, and not much else.

Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey

at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.

Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/carrierickey.

The Longest Yard

** (out of four stars)

Produced by Jack Giarraputo, directed by Peter Segal, written by Albert S. Ruddy, Tracy Keenan Wynn and Sheldon Turner, photography by Dean Semler, music by Teddy Castellucci, distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 54 mins.

Paul Crewe. . . Adam Sandler

Caretaker. . . Chris Rock

Warden. . . James Cromwell

Earl Megget. . . Nelly

Nate Scarborough. . . Burt Reynolds

Parent's guide: PG-13 (profanity, drug references, sexual references, violence)

Playing at: area theaters