Description
The opening scenes of The Replacements see American football team, the Washington Sentinels, in dire straits. The players have walked out in a protest over pay at a vital point in the season, forcing the Sentinels’ owner to bring veteran coach Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman) out of retirement to put together a replacement team. He assembles a group of oddballs and misfits including failed quarterback Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), a boozing Welsh brawler (Rhys Ifans), a convicted former football pro, a deaf mute, a psychopathic ex-cop, a sumo wrestler and a kleptomaniac (Orlando Jones) who has trouble catching the ball. It is Falco’s job to pull the team together and overcome his own problems to take the Sentinels to the playoffs. Howard Deutch (Pretty in Pink, Grumpier Old Men) directs this variation on a losers-make-good storyline that runs like Police Academy on the playing field. Keanu plays the Steve Guttenberg role. Sandra Bullock clone Brooke Langton provides the all-too-predictable cheerleading love interest, while Rhys Ifans delivers light relief as the team’s chain-smoking kicker.
