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The Replacements Customer Reviews (16 - 18 of 38 Reviews)

Uninspired and Formulaic
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.

Did Gene Hackman Really Need The Work This Bad?
Right up front, you should know that the plot of "The Replacements" is one that has been rehashed countless times in Hollywood: a grizzled veteran is called in to coach a bunch of misfits, inspire them, and ultimately lead them to the promised land ("Major League," "Necessary Roughness" or "The Mighty Ducks" anyone?). While such movies usually provide their share of chuckles despite the unoriginal plot lines, "The Replacements" rarely even does that. The plot centers around NFL owners having to draft replacements to fill in for the real players who have gone out on strike. Predictably, the usual ragged band of louts and misfits show up to play for coach Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman) of the fictitious Washington Sentinels, including washed up quarterback Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves). Throw in a sub-plot involving a love interest for Reeves, a slightly eccentric owner (played by Jack Warden), and, or course, the entire season coming down to one final play as time is running out, and well, you can pretty much guess what happens. This has to be Reeves' flattest performance yet (and that's really saying something - he rarely changes expression in this one). What's puzzling is what Gene Hackman, surely one of the best actors in cinematic history, is doing here. For gluttons only...

Best football movie since North Dallas Forty
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.

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