Replacements
"Bad. Horrible. Lame. Just fucking awful." That's what my boss said about me at my six-month review at the Family Dollar. I was cornered in his little office with the walls that don't go all the way to the ceiling and he dug into me like a cheap whore digs into a vial of crack. He thought he was really insulting me, shaming me into doing better. Holy shit, I was disappointing the management at the Family Dollar with my "bad attitude." Somehow, that is keeping the $3.99 umbrellas from being properly stocked.
I pretended to be so disappointed in myself that I needed some time off to rethink my career. Really, the only thing that pissed me off is that I've been at Family Dollar for so long. I've wasted six months in that shithole. Six fucking months wasted, down the shitter, and all the hours I should have spent pursuing my dreams I wasted jerking off to copies of "Hustler" I shoplifted from the liquor store. Take a moment yourself and think about how much of your life you've wasted tickling your leather monkey (or for you ladies, the hooded stranger). It's scary, huh?
Instead of pumping gas, my true calling in life, I've been stocking Fiddle Faddle for fat housewives and sad teenagers. I vow to make amends. From this day forward, I will cut my masturbating by one-third and dedicate those extra eight or nine hours a week to finding a gas station that wants me.
"Bad. Horrible. Lame. Fucking awful." Those were the first words out of my mouth after seeing "The Replacements." This is shit so foul I swear it came from the pot-o-lets after Thornton's Hard-boiled Egg Days. Just like me and my time at the Family Dollar, though, there's probably nobody involved in this godawful pile who's proud. The only differences are that nobody pays $4.50 to see me at the twilight show, and the grassfuckers in Hollywood aren't going to change. Sure, they might feel some remorse right after releasing this movie, but a week from now they'll be back, jerking off for our dollars and splattering the unsuspecting audience with more of their sickly come.
"The Replacements" is supposed to be about football. With four weeks left in the season, the players are on strike, so the owners bring in scabs. Gene Hackman, the coach of the Washington Sentinels, brings in a ragtag team of ne'er-do-wells and layabouts that he's had his eye on. These are undeveloped losers, convicts, freaks and fat men, or as the movie puts it "regular guys." I guess those moviemakers think that's
what the rest of us are, pathetic losers only good for a single laugh.
The Sentinels only need to win three of its last four to make the playoffs, and the scabs quickly lose their first game. Then they go through team-building exercises that include the obligatory bar fight and a bunch of guys sing a "Motown" oldie together. And that's all they need to bond and win the next two.
Meanwhile, Reeves falls in love with the head cheerleader, a woman so bland and boring that she should be selling Hot Dogs on a Stick in Minneapolis. It's never clear why they fall in love other than that Hollywood thinks they are both attractive, and Reeves never even acts interested. But, there is a formula that must be followed religiously, and so, as the movie goes on, he mopes alone less, and spends more time moping around her.
Before the Sentinels can win the last game of the season, Reeves job as quarterback is taken away from him and given to the oily former quarterback. During that final game, the old quarterback sucks leaky scrotum, and Reeves comes back to win the game. Hoo-fucking-ray.
"The Replacements" is a fucking mess, stupid, insulting and starring Keanu Reeves. He must be a real asshole to take work obviously meant for Scott Bakula.
This is a movie for people who say they love football, but don't. It's for the secretaries and gay office managers who only watch the Super Bowl, and even then are mostly interested in the snacks, commercials and half-time show. To anyone who gives a flying fuck, the movie's like getting a mouthful of piss when promised beer by your friends at the Arvada Tavern: bitter and sobering. The makers do not respect football at all. It's as though the director, sports-hating cave-dweller Howard Deutch, watched a few NFL highlight reels and said, "Yeah, that stuff is good, but we can do better if we just pretend there ar no
rules and no laws of physics." The result is bullshit so phony it's hard to cheer for the team that supposedly did them.
The movie's sloppily made, too. One football game shows the field in bright sunlight while the sideline shots are in cloud. In one scene, a player celebrates on the sideline at the same time he is shown celebrating on the field. And for some lazy reason, the head cheerleader has to hire a squad when there are only four games left, too. What, are cheerleaders covered by the same collective bargaining agreement as the players? And the few weak attempts at stories for people other than Reeves are embarrassing. They pop up, disappear, pop up and then are gone.
John Madden and Pat Summerall are present as a pair of announcers, and their parts are awkward, unfunny and unwanted. They explain everything we see just so there's no confusion. "That's a fumble," and "Touchdown!" add nothing but more noise. I think the makers thought these two old fat men would make the movie more legitimate, but that's like thinking seeing Bill Clinton take a dump makes the presidency more legitimate.
While I didn't laugh once, I got the idea "The Replacements" is a comedy. Those around me, a particularly dim-witted bunch, wanted to laugh and even started, only to have the movie tell them "No jokes here." And then the moviemakers had the balls to think we cared if their lame characters won or not. Maybe if they were human, but not since they're weak screenwriter interpretations of some very broad stereotypes.
Who is there to care for? The fat guy who is so fat they make fat jokes about him. Oh, that's good stuff. The crazy cop who is so crazy he acts crazy? Hi-larious. What about the other fat guys who are almost as fat as the really fat guy, and therefore almost as funny? That leaves Keanu Reeves and the cheerleaders for us to care about.
I can't figure out whether Keanu Reeves is the dumbest guy in the movies or whether he is just really dumb, making his living pretending to be the dumbest. His confusion in a story as convoluted as the "Matrix" was understandable, but what the fuck has him so confused here? The plot could only be simpler if the team won the Super Bowl in the first five minutes and then the movie ended. Yet he's still lost, wandering around mumbling and slouching. He doesn't look like a quarterback, or even the 27-year old he's supposed to be. He looks like an out-of-shape 40-year old who is pissed that someone woke him from his nap.
I love skanky chicks dancing in short skirts. Good God up in pussy heaven, I can't tell you how many dreams I have had about them. But the girls here are too skanky, too unnecessary and too underbaked. The movie keeps flashing to them on the sideline for no reason other than to try to distract us. It knows the movie sucks and a bunch of men doing bad imitations of football players won't hold our interest. But I hate pandering. I like a movie where the skanky chicks aren't so obviously just plugged in to keep men from falling asleep, where they somehow are part of the story, and eventually take off their tops and have sex with each other. These girls just didn't cut it.
It's one fucking finger for "The Replacements," a movie that sets back the art of making shitty sports movies by twenty years. I recommend you save your money and catch the superior "Gus, the Field-Goal Kicking Mule" on Disney, or buy "Let it Be" by the band The Replacements instead.