Synopsis
A football player-turned-convict organizes a team of inmates to play against a team of prison guards. His dilemma is that the warden asks him to throw the game in return for an early release, but he is also concerned about the inmates' lack of self-esteem.
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Cast
- Burt ReynoldsPaul Crewe
- Eddie AlbertWarden Hazen
- Ed LauterCaptain Knauer
- Michael ConradNate Scarboro
- James HamptonCaretaker
- Harry CaesarGranville
- John SteadmanPop
- Charles TynerUnger
- Mike HenryRassmeusen
- Jim NicholsonIce Man
Recommendations
- 90
Variety
The Longest Yard is an outstanding action drama, combining the brutish excitement of football competition with the brutalities of contemporary prison life. Burt Reynolds asserts his genuine star power, here as a former football pro forced to field a team under blackmail of warden Eddie Albert. - 75
Rolling Stone
This Burt Reynolds offering is a look at both prison life and the sport, and offers two hallmarks of classic 70's cinema: gritty, no holds barred action – and Reynolds' chest hair. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Deftly employing split-screen and slow-motion techniques, Aldrich makes the most of Tracy Keenan Wynn's incisive script, aided by fine cinematography and tight Oscar-nominated editing. - 70
The New Yorker
For all its bone-crunching collisions, it's almost irresistibly good-natured and funny. - 60
Time
What saves it, aside from good performances by Burt Reynolds and a thundering herd of supporting grotesques, is, of all things, a tough, tiny nut of valid social criticism. - 60
Time Out
The themes are dignity and compromise, freedom and betrayal; if it all gets bogged down occasionally in its macho-violence trip, it's nevertheless very exciting, very witty, and elevated above its action-movie status by Aldrich's deliberate references to Nixon in Albert's characterisation of the warden. - 40
The New York Times
Though The Yard is a terrible picture, I'll admit to having unwillingly enjoyed some of the football practice and parts of the final game —even though it's much too long.
