** - I haven’t seen the 1974 Burt Reynolds vehicle that this 2005 film is a remake of, so I can’t compare the two in any way in this review. What I can and will do is point out that this version has an unfortunately large number of professional wrestlers, former pro football players, and rappers in its cast. Beyond that fact – which certainly shows clearly a lack of acting strength and nuance – what was really annoying about this movie was its reliance on borderline offensive racial clichés for humor. I won’t deny that I enjoy a decent racist joke now and then, but I tend like them to be a bit more subtle and less frequently employed than they are in this movie, especially in this day and age in which just about every stereotyped racial group imaginable has had at least a half dozen movies devoted specifically to it. There are a few chuckles thrown in here and there, even some by star Adam Sandler who – as anyone who has read any of my other reviews for his movies will know – I generally despise. The plot revolves around an ex-star football player who winds up in jail and is given the rather odd task of putting together a prison football team to take on a team made up of guards (which already existed for some reason) in a game that didn’t appear to have any particular consequence. Dump plot + dumb jokes = dumb movie.
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