What became of Crewe? (spoilers)

"One of the things I love about this film is how it shows how men,
particularly men, interact with one another like this."


Absolutely! This is one of the all-time great, old school Men's Movies. TLY ranks right alongside The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape and many others in the way it shows men working together, bonding, and sometimes fighting.

Sadly, the rights of passage and the traditions of male identity, male community and the "man code" are being lost in our society. The values my father taught me are being challenged more every day.


Stacy - "We got a job"
Uncle John - "What kind?"
Stacy - "The Forever Kind..."

Very well put. These type of male-bonding films are very rare these days. I guess filmmakers would rather show guys blowing stuff up.

Interestingly, a much different football film Burt made a few years later, "Semi-Tough," with Kris Kristofferson and Jill Clayburgh (R.I.P.), explored similar turf in men's interactions with each other. "Semi-Tough" is really more a satire on late-'70s values than a football film, but it's very honest in men's relationships with women and with other men.

Proof of these films' strengths is the fact that I have no interest whatsoever in football, and "game" films pretty much end the same anyway – with the home team winning at the last second. But the scripts and performance are so strong, I don't care. "The Longest Yard" is really not about football anyway – it's about the players.