The Longest Yard (Robert Aldrich, 1974)

This one is simple to suss out. Check out that mouthy poster below. It doesn't lie. Everything except the 45-minute football game is a mess, tonally, structurally, narratively. The first half drags out the exposition and still leaves many fundamental questions unanswered. This includes dreary attempts at humor and a shoddily written warden character that the normally perfect Eddie Albert can do little to salvage. The game, by contrast, is tight, pure excitement. Any film that gets me to bite my nails over the outcome of a football game has got to be performing some kind of miracle. So that's a strong B indeed. But no crowd-pleasing sports flick needs to run 123 minutes. Trim that first half and we'd have a fabulous genre pic. 

Grade: B