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The Replacements Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 38 Reviews)

It's all about second chances
You smile a lot in this movie. You smile at the comedy, you smile at the triumph (not that you couldn't see that coming) and you smile at the love story.

Then..."Are you ready for some football?!?"

And in spite of the fact that this is a comedy that is supposed to have nothing but b-list "players", the football sequences are really, really, good. And really, Gene Hackman gives a huge performance, not that you would expect less from the man. Keanu Reeves is his ever one cardboard like self, but the man is consistant, so we can pretty much let that slide. And Orlando Jones leads a great cast of supporting actors that really help make this movie above average.

Take some time to enjoy this movie, because it's not often that you can get in some smashmouth foot ball scenes right after a good laugh.

Dismas in shoulder pads
It is all about second chances; all of us get them; not all of us take advantage of them. Hackman (tell me a bad Hackman movie?) reprises his role as a coach who is possibly a better leader (or are they the same?) as he began with Norman Dale in Hoosiers.

Here the curmudgeon Jack Warden assigns Hackman the veteran NFL Coach the job of coaching the replacements or scabs for the now striking NFL players. But Hackman sees in his replacements the men who never got a second chance. If you listen to his conversations about greatness and glory and changing your life it almost (don't give up on me here) becomes spiritual.

So Keanu Reeves becomes the team quarterback and although he is particulary wooden, he is less wooden here and you begin to believe in him. Hackman and Reeves don't become father and son but they might become mentor and student.

It's kind of a neat story but if you take really great sports movies, Hoosiers, Natural, Titans, they chose to pass up the opportunities to pander with racial humor and the Burt Reynalds obligatory barroom brawl and cleavage. I think that's why we didn't take "Replacements" all that seriously.

Kudos to Hackman and Reeves. The football sequences may be the most believable, and don't get me wrong, the brawling, the towel snapping humor and the cleavage is all wonderful. But how did you want us to take the storyline? It's difficult to take Hackman's pep talk about inside every boy is the chance to become a great man, when the camera then flashes on the adult cheerleaders doing the bump and grind and grind and grind.

While you'll enjoy the movie, I don't think Citizen Kane should be concerned. Larry Scantlebury. 4 stars.

Pigskin Saga Without the Gipper
I'm not a foot ball fan of any sort, but I love The Replacements, a film about heart and scabs and set against the obscene salary demands of NFL players. Keanu Reeves is all-American Shane Falco, an Ohio State QB who once fumbled the big game play on national television and his career was over before it started. The best character actor working today, Gene Hackman plays Jimmy McGinty, a retired coach who comes back one more time to inspire his team by respecting their talent and unique ability to rise above and beyond their former selves. Secondary roles are filled with former cop and tight end Jon Favreau, slippery fingers running back, Orlando Jones, and head cheerleader/bartender, Brook Langdon, who bond to comprise the little team that might.

As team coaches try to develop this odd squad into players, the NFL prima donnas who walked off the job over money taunt Falco for his "never was" status by turning over his truck. Brett Cullen is the on-strike QB who is in Falco's face but the woe of QB Falco doesn't end there because on the field his team mates accidentally sack him as well. Poor Falco can't win for trying, but the lovely head cheer leader rubs his bruises with sweet potato lotion and everything is better.

Comedy abounds in this "loosers are winners, too" film with the hysterical cheerleading squad of lap dancers from the Pussykat Klub who can't even spell the team's name but manage to distract the opposition at just the right play, and the running jokes between the obsessive Bateman (Favreau) and Hackman's McGinty who needs his player to "get me the ball" and then worries his player won't kill anyone in the process of retrival. Whether line dancing to "I Will Survive" or smooching during the final play, this is a great Saturday afternoon film for anyone who finds the ritual and riot over professional football simply beyond comprehension.

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