The Replacements Directed by Howard Deutch The NFL has an off-season where the players get to balance their checkbooks, take it easy and wax their fancy cars. I'm starting to think that the film industry needs an off-season as well, preferably in the summertime. I have just the film to show for this vacation proposal, The Replacements. The Replacements is another rotten vegetable thrown into this summer's pungent stew of unbearable films. I barely made it through Me, Myself and Irene and I've learned to forgive that film after seeing The Replacements, the newest sour apple in the unforgiving genre known as football films. One must contemplate the film's setup though, just as I did before seeing it. Football players around the nation go on strike, so the teams round up the best replacement players around to keep the season going. Sound good so far? You bring in some very convincing actors such as Gene Hackman, and let's see, Gene Hackman. For the chick factor you have Keanu Reeves, who I've yet to forgive after The Matrix. I'm still confused whether you were supposed to be wearing 3-D glasses during that film. The rest of the replacement team is made up of the typical typecast players: a couple of fat guys, a convicted felon, a wide receiver who can't catch, a kicker who smokes on the field (oh, how funny!!), an ex-swat team member, a deaf guy, and that little sweetheart Keanu Reeves as the quarterback who could. Where's the Dirty Dozen when you need them? The film tries to balance a serious story with absurd sightgag skits. Gene Hackman plays the coach, and tries to mirror his very remarkable coaching performance from Hoosiers in this film. It doesn't reflect. The film has too many empty stadium scenes between the coach and his 'ah shucks' replacement quarterback. Another football film that came out recently with the empty stadium inspiration speech is Any Given Sunday by Oliver Stone. That film worked, but it was also a commentary on how absurd the sport has gotten in terms of money and power. In that film, the quarterback played by Jaime Foxx, throws up when he gets nervous on the field. In The Replacements, half the team throws up on the field in a scene that was supposed to be funny. I wasn't laughing, but the majority of the audience was. How much more longer are we going to have to sit through films built on gross out humor? I stopped laughing a long time ago. I actually looked forward to the scenes with sports commentator John Madden in this film, something I shouldn't have to do. The film was directed by Howard Deutch, who has brought us the screen gems The Odd Couple II and Getting Even With Dad. Deutch commits onscreen murder by using the song "I Will Survive" in not just one but three different scenes, and once in a gut-wrenching sing along jail cell sequence. If seeing Keanu Reeves dancing to a disco song is your cup of tea, The Replacements was specially hand-molded just for you. Enjoy! Another scene has the star quarterback Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves) alone in a bar with the team's head cheerleader (Brooke Langton). At the beginning of the film, she says that she doesn't date football players, with extra emphasis on the fact that she doesn't date quarterbacks. Did the screenwriter, Vince McKewin, actually expect us to believe that they weren't gonna hook up? Back to the bar scene though. Falco is at one end of the bar, the cheerleader at the other. Just when you think the world might have some justice left, Sting's "Every Breath You Take" starts to play as they start to, you guessed it, step towards each other. The absolute horror. If you were waiting for my list of positives about the film, there are none. This film is a complete mess. I saw the film with a sneak preview audience and people seemed to really enjoy it, which made me start to think the room was full of evil robots. The lady beside me was slapping her knee through the entire film, even during the dramatic scenes. I was tempted to ask her if she was slapping her knee because the film was so funny, or she kept thinking about other things she could actually be doing besides watching The Replacements. Save your money people and rent Wildcats for a silly football film. |
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