When the story begins, Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) is having a fight with his girlfriend. He then leaves and she calls the cops. Now at this point it becomes obvious Crewe isn't all that bright, as he takes her car and leads the police on a high speed chase. It ends with Crewe pushing the car into the water and then fighting with the cops. Not surprisingly, he's sentenced to prison.

Upon arriving at the prison, you learn that Crewe is an ex-NFL player who threw his career away by shaving points AND the rather awful prison warden (Eddie Arnold) pulled strings to get Crewe sent to his particular prison. Why Because the prison guards have a semi-pro team and the warden wants Crewe to coach the team. Crewe refuses and is punished by being placed on a terrible work detail. It's obvious that life for Crewe is going to be bad unless he agrees to play ball with the warden. And, by that, it means Crewe organizing the prisoners to play the guards in a big football game.

I've heard repeatedly that this was a comedy, but to me I wouldn't consider it to be a comedy...just a very good sports film. It has many of the usual things you'd expect in such a game...along with the guards playing extra-dirty (I sure expected it to be the other way around). Very enjoyable and Reynolds seemed to really be in his element with this one.

It is admittedly manipulative and quite violent, and being filled to the brim with references to The Dirty Dozen and the corrupt regime of President Nixon, it can be a little heavy-handed. These aside though, it is very well made with crisp cinematography and an imposing building for the prison, and the comedy is boisterous and comes by thick and fast, and it is pretty hard to beat with this on showing loyalty, dignity and liberty. Robert Aldrich directs with panache, the music is very good, the story is gripping, the script is sharp and the acting is excellent. Burt Reynolds exudes star quality as the imprisoned football professional who is forced to organise a team of convicts against their own guards, and it was nice to see Bernadette Peters as the Warden's secretary. But it is Eddie Albert who steals the acting honours as the sadistic warden. Overall, a very good prison drama, and definitely recommended. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The Longest Yard refers not to the territory gained and lost in a football game. For Burt Reynolds its that prison yard that he's in for the next 18 months.

Reynolds isn't one of the noblest athletes ever to grace the National Football League. He was a quarterback who was thrown out of the game in a point shaving scandal. Now he's doing time for stealing his mistress's Maserati and causing a lot of havoc and mayhem when she called the cops on him.

The Longest Yard starts to look a little like From Here To Eternity where Monty Clift's company captain Philip Ober wants him to box for the post championship. Reynolds really isn't interested in playing football any more or helping warden Eddie Albert out with his semi-pro team of prison guards. But he's got less redress than Clift did in the army and Reynolds is not a person to make too fine a point of resistance.

What Reynolds suggests is a tune-up game with a squad of the inmates to play the guards to keep them in a fighting edge. Sounds real good to Albert who has a mean streak in him that Reynolds is slow to realize. There's a lot of possibilities to inflict some legal pain and for him to reassert his authority.

The Longest Yard is first and foremost about what Reynolds will do when the crisis comes. His track record doesn't suggest any heroics, but some people do surprise you.

The antagonists Reynolds and Albert are given good support by director Robert Aldrich's picked cast. Foremost among them are Ed Lauter as the chief guard, James Hampton as the team manager, and Charles Tyner in a particularly loathsome role as a prison stoolie. He will really make your skin crawl.

Bernadette Peters is also in The Longest Yard as Albert's secretary with the delightful name of Miss Toot who takes advantage of her position with a little sexual harassment of the prisoners. I do love that Dickensian name that was given her for this film. The only other female of note is Anitra Ford who is Reynolds mistress and whose Maserati he appropriates. When Burt says he earned that Maserati you can well believe it.

The Longest Yard is in a class by itself, a sports/prison movie. A film that created it's own genre. That has to count for something.