Movie · 1974 · Comedy, Drama, Crime · 2h 1m · R · English
Curator score: 4.3/10 (37.6K ratings)
It's survival of the fiercest and funniest
Overview
A football player-turned-convict organizes a team of inmates to play against a team of prison guards. His dilemma is that the warden asks him to throw the game in return for an early release, but he is also concerned about the inmates' lack of self-esteem.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.3/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Letterboxd: 3.43/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 74%
Metacritic: 61
TMDB: 6.8/10
Director
Robert Aldrich
Production
Paramount Pictures
Cast
Burt Reynolds, Eddie Albert, Ed Lauter, Michael Conrad, James Hampton, Harry Caesar, John Steadman, Charles Tyner, Mike Henry, Richard Kiel, Pervis Atkins, Bernadette Peters, Jim Nicholson, Tony Cacciotti, Anitra Ford, Tony Reese, Michael Fox, Dino Washington, George A. Jones, Chuck Hayward
Where to watch
fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo
Curator Review
Verdict
A rough-edged, very 1970s prison-sports comedy with real bite: funny, macho, and politically charged enough to feel sharper than a simple underdog crowd-pleaser. It’s dated in places, but the energy, Burt Reynolds charisma, and the prison-as-power-structure angle still make it compelling.
Best for
70s sports movies with grit
prison dramas with a comic streak
fans of anti-authoritarian underdog stories
viewers who like tough, masculine ensemble films
Skip if
you’re sensitive to dated racial or gender politics
you want a clean, feel-good sports movie
you dislike abrasive 1970s cynicism
you prefer subtle character drama over broad, rowdy energy
Overview
Robert Aldrich turns a prison football game into something closer to a bruising class-war fable than a standard sports comedy. The movie has the swagger of a Burt Reynolds star vehicle, but it also carries a mean streak: the inmates are trapped in a system designed to humiliate them, and the game becomes a public contest over dignity, power, and control.
Worth noting
What makes it work is the mix of hard edges and crowd-pleasing momentum. The football sequences are staged with real force, and Aldrich’s split-screen, roughhouse style gives the whole thing a sweaty, combative texture. It’s funny, but the humor is often inseparable from the film’s aggression and its distrust of authority.
Bottom line
That said, the movie is very much a product of its era. Some of the racial and gender attitudes are ugly, and the broad caricatures can be hard to ignore. Still, if you can take it as a messy, muscular artifact of 1970s American cinema, it remains a sharp and entertaining watch.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (3.5★) · 160 likes
After many viewings of the Adam Sandler version and a less-than-pleasant experience with Mean Machine, I figured it was about time I checked out the original. One of several collaborations between Burt Reynolds and Albert S. Ruddy, most known for his work on The Godfather.
When comparing the original to the remake, the only significant variations are the characters' ages and races, plus the fact that I can't for the life of me recall a single scene set in a… more
Josh Gillam (4★) · 111 likes
After getting sent to prison, disgraced ex-NFL player Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) is forced into assembling a team of cons to compete against the guards, in this classic prison sports comedy from Robert Aldrich.
It’s all filled with a really distinctive early 70s grit: in Aldrich’s hands this story can get pretty dark, so there’s an edge to the material which helps everything feel that much more earned, his underdog tale not afraid to lean into spikier territory.
All that’s… more
DBC (4.5★) · 108 likes
There's a scene at the beginning of The Longest Yard where Burt Reynolds' character of a disgraced pro football player is in a bar getting sloppy(er) drunk after leading the cops on an insane high speed chase in a car he just stole from his wealthy socialite girlfriend because he's tired of being her puppet boy-toy. The cops come in to drag his ass to jail, and yet neither them or the bartender can contain their amusement with the no-fucks-given… more There's a scene at the beginning of The Longest Yard where Burt Reynolds' character of a disgraced pro football player is in a bar getting sloppy(er) drunk after leading the cops on an insane high speed chase in a car he just stole from his wealthy socialite girlfriend because he's tired of being her puppet boy-toy. The cops come in to drag his ass to jail, and yet neither them or the bartender can contain their amusement with the no-fucks-given… more
laird (4★) · 60 likes
White Man's BurtenorPro and Cons
This could have been about nothing but plucky underdogs doing good at sports, but in the spirit of the times, it very clearly seems to be inviting reading the clash between the prison guards and the prisoners as something more; something as specific as a call to action against police brutality, or something more universally about the abuse of power. Burt Reynolds, the selfish prick, is sitting there on the bench watching the… more
Joe (4.5★) · 59 likes
Enough uniquely 1970s toxic testosterone to poison the island of Themyscira, but as is also (sports metaphor) par for the course in the 70s it never seems comfortable or complacent with the across-the-board awful state of things. Muscular, anti-authoritarian, hilarious, with extremely well-constructed on-field action, but the key shot for me is probably Burt Reynolds running out onto the field grinning under the roar of the crowd. Star.