Film review: 'The Replacements'
Talk about bad timing. In the midst of one of the more contentious labor strikes in the entertainment industry, here comes Warner Bros.' "The Replacements", a film glorifying scabs.
Based loosely on the National Football League players strike a dozen years ago, in which replacement players filled in for the pros while labor negotiations dragged on, "The Replacements" makes no effort at evenhandedness: Professional players are portrayed as too pampered and overpaid to play football with healthy abandon. What they lack is heart, the kind that their replacements -- ordinary, blue-collar jocks -- possess in ample measure.
Despite its unabashedly pro-management stance, the film's scruffy amiability and comic football action may win more than a few fans. Gene Hackman is always good value and a cast of implausibly wacky supporting characters turn the fictional Washington Sentinels into a football team that should win something -- if not the Super Bowl than perhaps the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.
Vince McKewin's screenplay is essentially a hand-me-down from such sports movies as "Major League" and "The Bad New Bears", in which an unlikely group of athletes comes together and after an initial display of comic ineptitude, win in spite of themselves.
The Sentinels, four games away from a playoff berth, go on strike late in the season. The team's folksy owner (Jack Warden) recruits McGinty (Hackman), the coach he once fired, to put together a team. Instantly, McGinty has a list of players he wants that runs the gamut from bodyguards to a guy in prison.
For quarterback, he selects Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), who established a reputation for wilting under pressure in college. Shane somehow clicks with this new coach, to say nothing of head cheerleader Anabelle Farrell (Brooke Langton), and leads the Sentinels to the verge of victory despite the harassment of union players.
Acting standouts include Hackman, of course; Rhys Ifans as the chain-smoking soccer-style field goal kicker; and Langton, who despite a skimpily written role manages to be smart, funny and sexy. Reeves, though, struggles with an indifferently written character. He never quite gets a handle on what makes the guy tick on and off the field.
The Sentinel's replacement roster is jammed with funny ideas for characters that McKewin fails to develop: a Japanese sumo wrestler (Ace Yonamine), an overeager LAPD officer (Jon Favreau) and two bookends of beefcake (Michael "Bear" Taliferro and Faizon Love) who look like relatives of Sherman Klump who have drifted across the multiplex from where "The Nutty Professor II" is playing.
Director Howard Deutch keeps things moving along fast enough so one doesn't puzzle too long over inconsistencies, unlikely football plays or the need for repeated shots of the exotic dancers who have replaced the Sentinel cheerleaders.
With such behind-the-camera pros as cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, production designer Dan Bishop and editors Bud Smith and Seth Flaum, the film is a smooth and polished product. Would it be churlish to point out that these guys along with the fine actors are all union members?
THE REPLACEMENTS
Warner Bros.
in association with Bel-Air Entertainment
a Dylan Sellers production
Producer: Dylan Sellers
Director: Howard Deutch
Writer: Vince McKewin
Executive producers: Steven Reuther,
Jeffrey Chernov, Erwin Stoff
Director of photography: Tak Fujimoto
Production designer: Dan Bishop
Music: John Debney
Costume designer: Jill Ohanneson
Editors: Bud Smith, Seth Flaum
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shane Falco: Keanu Reeves
Jimmy McGinty: Gene Hackman
Annabelle Farrell: Brooke Langton
Clifford Franklin: Orlando Jones
Dainel Bateman: Jon Favreau
Nigel Gruff: Rhys Ifans
Jamal Jackson: Faizon Love
Andre Jackson: Michael "Bear" Taliferro
Running time - 109 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Based loosely on the National Football League players strike a dozen years ago, in which replacement players filled in for the pros while labor negotiations dragged on, "The Replacements" makes no effort at evenhandedness: Professional players are portrayed as too pampered and overpaid to play football with healthy abandon. What they lack is heart, the kind that their replacements -- ordinary, blue-collar jocks -- possess in ample measure.
Despite its unabashedly pro-management stance, the film's scruffy amiability and comic football action may win more than a few fans. Gene Hackman is always good value and a cast of implausibly wacky supporting characters turn the fictional Washington Sentinels into a football team that should win something -- if not the Super Bowl than perhaps the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.
Vince McKewin's screenplay is essentially a hand-me-down from such sports movies as "Major League" and "The Bad New Bears", in which an unlikely group of athletes comes together and after an initial display of comic ineptitude, win in spite of themselves.
The Sentinels, four games away from a playoff berth, go on strike late in the season. The team's folksy owner (Jack Warden) recruits McGinty (Hackman), the coach he once fired, to put together a team. Instantly, McGinty has a list of players he wants that runs the gamut from bodyguards to a guy in prison.
For quarterback, he selects Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), who established a reputation for wilting under pressure in college. Shane somehow clicks with this new coach, to say nothing of head cheerleader Anabelle Farrell (Brooke Langton), and leads the Sentinels to the verge of victory despite the harassment of union players.
Acting standouts include Hackman, of course; Rhys Ifans as the chain-smoking soccer-style field goal kicker; and Langton, who despite a skimpily written role manages to be smart, funny and sexy. Reeves, though, struggles with an indifferently written character. He never quite gets a handle on what makes the guy tick on and off the field.
The Sentinel's replacement roster is jammed with funny ideas for characters that McKewin fails to develop: a Japanese sumo wrestler (Ace Yonamine), an overeager LAPD officer (Jon Favreau) and two bookends of beefcake (Michael "Bear" Taliferro and Faizon Love) who look like relatives of Sherman Klump who have drifted across the multiplex from where "The Nutty Professor II" is playing.
Director Howard Deutch keeps things moving along fast enough so one doesn't puzzle too long over inconsistencies, unlikely football plays or the need for repeated shots of the exotic dancers who have replaced the Sentinel cheerleaders.
With such behind-the-camera pros as cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, production designer Dan Bishop and editors Bud Smith and Seth Flaum, the film is a smooth and polished product. Would it be churlish to point out that these guys along with the fine actors are all union members?
THE REPLACEMENTS
Warner Bros.
in association with Bel-Air Entertainment
a Dylan Sellers production
Producer: Dylan Sellers
Director: Howard Deutch
Writer: Vince McKewin
Executive producers: Steven Reuther,
Jeffrey Chernov, Erwin Stoff
Director of photography: Tak Fujimoto
Production designer: Dan Bishop
Music: John Debney
Costume designer: Jill Ohanneson
Editors: Bud Smith, Seth Flaum
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shane Falco: Keanu Reeves
Jimmy McGinty: Gene Hackman
Annabelle Farrell: Brooke Langton
Clifford Franklin: Orlando Jones
Dainel Bateman: Jon Favreau
Nigel Gruff: Rhys Ifans
Jamal Jackson: Faizon Love
Andre Jackson: Michael "Bear" Taliferro
Running time - 109 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 7/31/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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