IMDb plot summary: During a pro football strike, the owners hire substitute players.
Directed by Howard Deutch. Starring Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, and Brooke Langton.
The Replacements is a sports movie from 2000 based on an actual football players strike. Here, Gene Hackman plays the old coach who comes back in to assemble a team of replacement players, headed up by Keanu Reeves. The group has to learn to work together so they can win the final games of the season and take home the championship. This movie has two things working against it for me: one, it's an inspirational sports movie, and two... it's an inspirational sports movie siding against striking workers. Sorry, folks, I'm just a little too pro-labor to feel sorry for the scabs being looked down on. The movie it kept drawing negative comparisons to, from earlier this challenge, was Next Goal Wins, another movie about underdog sports teams, but that one had more distinct characters and didn't require me to cheer for a mega corporation. The characters in this aren't super compelling, the romance isn't interesting, and just overall very little about it works for me. I know this is some people's favorite kind of story, but it's not mine.
How it entered my Flickchart:
The Replacements < Pete's Dragon (1977)
The Replacements > Loving Annabelle
The Replacements < Fun Size
The Replacements < Water for Elephants
The Replacements < The Preacher's Wife
The Replacements < A Mighty Wind
The Replacements > The Devil's Brigade
The Replacements < The Spanish Prisoner
The Replacements < The Fundamentals of Caring
The Replacements > My Darling Clementine
The Replacements > Candy
The Replacements > Reminiscence
Final spot: #2942 out of 3974, or 26%.
