The Replacements

Rating:
Summary: The "Major League" of Football
Review: The directors of this movie had to have been influenced by the movie "Major League", which was a flick similar to this instead intended for major league baseball. The Replacements is another great football comedy similar, but better than "Unecessary Roughness". Although I wasn't too thrilled about Keanu Reeves preformance, the other players did a tremendous job. Orlando Jones stars as a stone-handed reciever who used to work at a mini-mart. Other characters included to guards who were bodyguards, a linebacker who is a DEA agent, a kicker who is an alcoholic and soccer player from Europe, a running back who is a pastor, a safetly that's an inmate, and a asian offensive lineman that eats eggs before a game only to puke during competition. These unique personalites all end up blending together as the team lives life to it's fullest as professional athletes. I feel the movie could have had a more colorful quarterback, but the supporting cast was full of comedians. This movie, along with "Wildcats" and "Waterboy" are the best football movies in terms of comedy. One with a great sense of humor would be impressed. If you are too serious, then you will be extrememly bored however.

Rating:
Summary: Uninspired and Formulaic
Review: In "The Replacements" Keanu Reeves stars as Shane Falco, a washed up former college football star who is recruited by the coach of the fictitious Washington Sentinels, Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman), to quarterback his team during a player strike. Falco is, as they say in the movie, a never was. Apparently he was someone with immense talent who froze during a big game in the Sugar Bowl and never recovered from it.

The league's players have gone on strike and the league has decided to play the games with replacement players. This is reminiscent of what the NFL actually did during the 1987 season.

You know right from the start that "The Replacements" is going to be a movie without any originality or smarts. As soon as he gets the go ahead to use the replacement players, McGinty manages to drag up from the depths every sort of misfit and miscreant to fill out his roster. His players include a convict, an insane cop, a gambling-addicted Welshman, a sumo wrestler, etc. Not to mention that the only replacement cheerleaders they can find in the entire Washington, DC metropolitan area are "exotic" dancers.

From the players McGinty picks to the replacement cheerleaders to the uninspired casting of Reeves and Hackman, this movie is as formulaic as Hollywood gets. There's even an outwardly tough, inwardly tender head cheerleader for Reeves to woo. Even the depiction of the striking players as greedy and arrogant is from right out of the Hollywood handbook.

Oddly enough, the only thing that saves this film from being a one-star debacle is the few scenes involving John Madden and Pat Summerall. Madden and Summerall, playing themselves of course, add a little humor to an otherwise humorless flick with their funny descriptions of onfield miscues.

There is a great movie waiting to be made about replacement professional athletes. "The Replacements" is not that movie.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't work as comedy or as a movie about football
Review: From the day the first studio opened in Hollywood in a former farmer's field, there were more people who wanted to be in the movie business than there were jobs available. Today, nearly a century later, this situation remains unchanged. Surely thousands of talented and creative people have been turned away by now, yet still the movie business seems to have more than its fair share of incompetents. Perhaps it is true that what the mediocre do best is to defend their turf.

Take The Replacements - please! If someone hadn't apparently cast a spell on Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman which caused them accept roles in this effort, then it would have no reason at all to exist.

The Washington Sentinels football team is having an okay season until its league has a players' strike with only four games left until the playoffs. The gruff old owner [Jack Warden] begs his team's former coach, Jimmy McGinty [Gene Hackman], to work for him again. His idea is to finish the season with replacement players, aka scabs. McGinty happens to have a list in his head of potential players, most of whom have missed their chance at glory and have dropped off the face of the Earth. One of these is Shane Falco [Keanu Reeves], an ex-college quarterback whose former team suffered the worst defeat in Sugar Bowl history. Shane now scraps barnacles off boats for a living. Other replacements include a sumo wrestler, a soccer player, a deaf-mute and a guy who is fresh out of prison. McGinty has one week to whip these men into shape. For some reason, the cheerleaders have gone missing, too, and it is up to Annabelle [Brooke Langton] to recruit new ones. Meanwhile, the striking players have nothing better to do than to hassle the replacements.

I do not expect a movie always to mirror real life. Still, when I see movies that veer totally from reality, it makes me uncomfortable. Often, these movies simply aren't clever enough to divert my attention from such shortcomings. When a movie has plot holes but is well made, you don't think about these faults until after it is over. Watching The Replacements, I couldn't quit thinking about how dumb it was to imagine anyone's simply going out and replacing an entire professional team within a week. To me, this is an example of having a funny idea that is not strong enough to support a whole movie and then proceeding to force things into place to try to make it work.

Mr. Reeves and Mr. Hackman have not fallen in stature in my eyes, but surely this is the low point in both star's careers. I hope that they have now learned that loving to watch football does not automatically qualify one to make a movie about the sport. As for director Howard Deutch, the movie is sadly about on par with his other efforts. These include The Odd Couple II, Grumpier Old Men and Getting Even With Dad. The latter was the film that finally persuaded Macauly Culkin to quit making movies entirely.

Rating:
Summary: Not Great, But Surprisingly Good
Review: The Story: Professional football players are on strike, but the owners want to keep going (sound familiar?), so they hire replacement players. One owner also hires Gene Hackman to build and coach his replacement team.

Commentary: I'm not saying this is a great movie, because it isn't. If 3.5 stars was an option, that might fit better. But, this is a very likable movie (I know other reviewers disagree, but this is MY opinion). Keanu Reeves usually underplays his roles, but that fits in this movie. The writing and direction aren't great, and the movie is predictable, but it still has heart. I smiled a lot, and I thought two scenes were hilarious (watch out for car-tipping (the first time) and especially for the jail scene where one character starts off by saying, "I was afraid.").

If all the movies ever made were ranked, this would be buried somewhere in the middle. But, if you can't find a certain movie you're looking for, you won't regret picking up this replacement.

P.S.: Gene Hackman shows us an interesting blend of Mike Ditka and Tom Landry.

Rating:
Summary: No Tight Ends Here.
Review: In THE REPLACEMENTS, the professional football league players go on strike to protest unfair wages under the salary cap forcing teams to finish the remaining quarter of the season with replacement players. Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman), a former championship coach, is brought in to put together a team for the Washington Sentinels, a team that could have a chance at the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The team McGinty huddles together includes a Japanese sumo wrestler, two gangsters, a psychotic cop, a Welsh soccer player, and Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves)-a former college star who lost a big bowl championship and was never heard from again. The team struggles to find unity, but eventually find their groove together and along the way Falco falls in love with the team's cheerleading coach.

Ever since THE MATRIX, Reeves has finally been able to shake the "Bill & Ted" goofiness that haunted his acting. He does a fairly believable job in THE REPLACEMENTS and for Keanu Reeves, that's saying a great deal. Gene Hackman is just the ... as McGinty, a coach who has a personality a lot like Mike Martz (of the St. Louis Rams). The film has a wonderful supporting cast including Orlando Jones, Jon Favreau, Rhys Ifans, and Ace Yonamine.

The major drawback of the film is that there isn't much continuity; the movie felt disjointed with scenes not flowing into each other well at all. This lack of continuity was somewhat covered by the awesome rocking soundtrack. However, music should never be the star of a film and when it plays a bigger part than the script, a movie almost always suffers.

I found the film to be more enjoyable than I originally thought it would be and I was impressed by Keanu Reeves. There are a lot better football flicks available, but there are some really bad ones, too. THE REPLACEMENTS doesn't have any tight ends and, therefore, fall inbetween.

Rating:
Summary: Predictable but funny
Review: The movie is predictable but funny. It's "Major League" with football instead of baseball. It's good for a few laughs. I especially liked the fight and the jail scenes.

The drawbacks: In the beginning, it's like someone decided alter the script of "Major League" just enough to not get sued. Also, the way they cut the film when Keanu Reeves throws the ball is enough to let you know he has no idea how to throw it. I'm not downing Reeves. I'm complaining about the editing.

Rating:
Summary: Run to daylight
Review: After laughing once in the first 45 minutes - and being interested in the story for zero minutes - I turned off the videotape of THE REPLACEMENTS. Not funny, not interesting, maybe the remainder of the picture was what gave it the high marks I saw in other reviews.

Rating:
Summary: Best football movie since North Dallas Forty
Review: It's hard to make a good football movie(see Any Given Sunday) anymore. But they pulled it off here by going unconventional.

First of all, yes this is lightweight in terms of plot. We've seen it before(Major League), but when it's done right, as this is, it's a thoroughly entertaining flick. The main character, Shane Falco, gets a 2nd chance at a career cut short, and you know in the end it will have a relatively happy ending. But how they got there was so much fun, I've re-watched the movie half a dozen times. It's the perfect party movie if there's not a real football game on.

What stands out to me is the absolutely side-splitting humor throughout the film. Too often, the comedy is only in the first 20 minutes of a film like this, and then they think they have to be serious to tell a good story. This movie, in large part due to the supporting cast, provides the viewer with laughs throughout the ENTIRE film, without going so crazily slapstick that the story(light as it may be) is lost.

Keanu Reeves plays the "straight man" in this one, while John Favreau, Orlando Jones, and Rhys Ifans get to really showcase their comedic side. But the 2 funniest scenes in the movie belong to the cheerleaders. The tryouts had me on the floor with tears in my eyes, and the game against Detroit...well I don't want to spoil it. Orlando Jones is one of the rare breed of actors who can act as much with his facial expressions as with his dialogue and movements, and he gets to play it up big time here. Favreau gets to over-act in several scenes and you know he had a blast with it. Ifans is just a blast to watch on screen, and is another of those "facial" actors.

And I forgot to mention the bar scene with the deaf kid and the cheerleader. Priceless.

To sum up, I highly recommend this movie. The football scenes look real, and in the "making of" feature, we learn that Reeves actually trained for the part to learn how a quarterback moves and throws so he wouldn't need a stand in for the on-field scenes. He did quite well I thought. So, if you like football, get this movie; if you like comedies, get this movie. And I didn't even mention the legendary Gene Hackman, did I? That should tell you all you need to know.

Rating:
Summary: Fun, Fun, Fun
Review: The movie has a wonderful theme that many people have forgotten in this "give-me" society....that good guys can finish first. I have watched this movie four times and each time, I come away with a smile on my face. Though the humor is "shaded" I laughed my socks off. Love the supporting characters in this movie. Hackman is good. The leading lady leaves something to be desired as she does not possess the sames chemistry with Reeves as Sandra Bullock did in "Speed."
I am a Reeves fan and enjoy his evolution as a movie actor. Some say his speech is "slurred" or the like but that is because they are communication "challenged" themselves. This is a movie worthy of buying as you can watch it over and over again.

Rating:
Summary: Keanu Reeves I don't normally like but LOVE THIS MOVIE
Review: Formulaic football flick - I had no desire to see this when dear hubby brought it home. I ended up watching it three times in 24 hours! Gene Hackman's character is the epitome of positive thinking and the entire supporting cast make this film. I could do without this particular romance but it is so funny and lighthearted I will forgive them for including it.

THIS IS A MUST-SEE