The Replacements (2000) - Review
Originally published September 2016Has there ever been a movie that you've watched that you may have known at the time that it wasn't good, but you still kind of liked it anyway? There are plenty of movies that I know I thought were "good" at the time of their initial release but have trouble holding up to scrutiny with age. However, I can't think of as many that were not good, but still acceptable, at their release time that have held up. I feel like movies from the early 2000s are pretty consistent in those struggles and are thus a good source of the films of which I speak, with the overuse of crappy CGI, the emergence of remake overload, and a frustrating amount of lazy writing filled with clichés and stereotypes. Among the drek that was released during that time was a little sports movie that I knew was bad. It didn't stand out from the rest of the movies in its genre and yet I liked it at the time. I'm talking, of course, about The Replacements.
I remember seeing The Replacements numerous times on HBO and eventually on TBS. I recall enjoying the film and thinking it was pretty funny, despite being nothing special or clever. Keanu Reeves was the star and exhibited his usual amount of acting skill, or lack thereof. Gene Hackman was phoning it in as sentimental curmudgeon, Coach What's-his-name, who talks about playing with "heart" all the time. The plot was a safe, run-of-the-mill story that did nothing but follow the most basic sports movie formula. Nonetheless, I liked it at the time for what it was; I know that the thought "It's not that bad" crossed my mind a few times back when I watched it as a young college kid. Having watched it again recently for the first time in a decade, I have changed my tune a little bit.
Image: Warner Bros.
God, The Replacements is awful! I'm not sure if I simply had an infantile sense of humor or if I just had naive optimism that prevented me from seeing the utter trash this film was, but maaaan, it's bad. I had a legitimately bad time watching this piece of garbage, even as a person who now enjoys trashy films. Watching this now as a 30+ adult in 2016, I could barely find any moments of enjoyment. This movie's jokes fall flat or are just plain dumb, the soundtrack is so bland it could be from any movie, and the clichés are extremely distracting.
The Replacements is based on the NFL strike that took place a few decades ago. While the NFL negotiated multi-million dollar contracts with their players, they hired replacement players to finish the football season to make sure fans and ticket-holders still showed up to the football games and it wasn't a complete financial loss. That's about where the truth of the tale ends. All the character names, the various subplots, and turning points in the storyline are either fabricated or exaggerated. I say fabricated, but that feels too respectful to the writers of this film since the made-up stuff has already been written a million times before in every other sports movie ever made.
The former up-and-coming quarterback, Shane Falco (Reeves), who once seemed like a great prospect until he blew his chances on the big game, is given his second chance to play in the big time. The bitter old coach (Hackman), who was the best of the best, but was betrayed and cast out by the big men with the money, is pulled back into the game one more time to get his shot at coaching champions. They've got to round up a bunch of other random has-been types to make the best rag-tag team they can so they can win the two games they need to go to the playoffs. Pretty familiar, right?
Image: Warner Bros.
The rest of the team is filled up with racial stereotypes and hyperboles out of the Mighty Ducks/Major League. Orlando Jones continues to channel his plucky personality from his 7-Up commercials as the wide receiver who is really fast but can't catch, much like how Wesley Snipes in Major League could run fast but couldn't hit. There's an ex-convict who shows up to the tune of some gangsta rap beat and is reminiscent of Charlie Murphy's Tyree from the Mad Real World sketch of the Chapelle Show. There's a sumo wrestler who is either accompanied by stereotypical "fat" sound effects or "oriental" music. There's also a bunch of the other usual suspects like the crazy one, the one with a disability whom you root for, and the wise-cracking gambler. You get the idea.
I've mentioned The Mighty Ducks and Major League, two other examples of sports movies that rely on cliché characters to tell their story. Major League holds up the best of the two since it avoids the sentimental crap of the Might Ducks and uses more thoughtful adult humor to balance it out, but that's the ‘80s for you, I guess. Even with their flaws, neither of these two sports film examples hold up nearly as poorly as The Replacements. Let's give some examples as to why The Replacements sucks, starting with the obvious and superficial stuff.
The soundtrack of the movie features some of the most commonly used musical tracks in movies, not just of the sports variety. One of the main tracks they kept using and referring to was "I Will Survive," by Gloria Gaynor, a song about relationship breakups and surviving heartbreak. It's DEFINITELY the song that I think of when I'm watching a sports movie. There's only one love interest in the movie and she is never present when the song is playing, even after the contrived heartbreak moment where she gets stood up. Instead, it's some forgettable heartbreak sentimental bullshit. The soundtrack just rubs me the wrong way because of how supplementary it is. You could replace every song on the list with some other pop song of this decade or that and it wouldn't change anything. This might as well have been the sound editor's gym playlist for all I care. Perhaps if you put some metal over it, everything would be slightly more interesting
Image: Warner Bros.
The main thing that makes The Replacements suck is how it doesn't respect its audience. This is a lazy movie that just plays to a formula with cheap laughs and bullshit. The football part of the movie (aka the whole premise) takes a bit of a back seat to the uninteresting plot and characters, though it still limits itself to the mandatory 3-game formula. A significant portion of the film is just for us to be introduced to these characters as if we didn't know them already from every other sports movie. Everyone, of course, clashes with one another at first in the film. They lose their first game together because of how poorly they work together as a team. It takes a big moment where they share an antagonist and rally against it to grow as friends—which, in this case, is the group of star football players who are on strike and harassing them. The replacements win their second game, proving to the world that there is hope here and that they could work cohesively as a team.
By the time the second game is won, they've grown as friends, or at least that's what the movie would have you believe. Maybe they have, maybe they haven't, but it doesn't matter because we've seen how this has gone before. Something happens to prevent the big star of the movie (aka most important team member) from joining the last game of the film and nobody can do anything without him. When he finally overcomes the contrived roadblock the writers created for him to keep him from participating, everything turns around in the end and sports movie victory ensues.
Yes. This is one of those sports movies where they come up with some arbitrary reason as to why a main character can't play in the last game, which screws their team over until everyone just says, "Whatever," and the person plays anyway, so they can come back out of nowhere to save the day like Han Solo. Keanu Reaves is not allowed to play because the guy he replaced is back on the field. Yet, after moping for a good 20 minutes, standing up his date, and Gene Hackman saying some “inspirational” sentimental nonsense, he shows up again they let him play anyway, even though he legally shouldn't be playing. It's stupid
Image: Warner Bros.
The last thing I'll mention about The Replacements is that it is definitely a product of its time. Back in the early 2000s, there weren't as many sensitive movie viewers in a position to bitch and moan about every little thing they saw that they decided was offensive, as they choked down their Starbucks drinks in the "correctly" decorated Christmas cups. The Replacements got off easy in that regard. That being said, that doesn't excuse bad movies using cheap stereotypes and poorly written racial humor that doesn't do anything but offend. Much like Major League's misogynistic "romance," some of The Replacements's material wouldn't fly today. I have a dark sense of humor and I'm willing to laugh at some good jokes about whatever subject, so long as the writing is clever. The Replacements, however, is not remotely as clever as something like the Chapelle Show.
Here's an example of what I mean. The big sumo player has more than just the fat sounds or "oriental" music to match his stereotype. He also has a battle cry, which he utters at various points during the movie. Phonetically it is "Nan desu ka!" There is no translation in the subtitles or anything to inform you what it means, so you're just expected to be a dumb viewer who wouldn't know Japanese or bother to look it up. What does it actually mean? In Japanese, which is what his character is supposed to be speaking, it means "What is this?" Seems like a good thing to say right before you hit someone, right? Would anyone take Batman seriously if he always screamed out "What time is it?!" when he punched dudes in the face? Probably not.
The use of Nan desu ka?! is never actually used appropriately in the film in relation to its meaning, but then when would it be considering the fact that you're shouting out a question? It's also never explained, or treated like a real joke, like how the Tick yells out "Spoon!" as his battle cry. This leads me to believe someone just heard it uttered in public somewhere, or heard it while watching anime and thought it would make a good battle cry without looking up what it actually meant. Another sign of lazy writing and the use of stereotypes for the sake of convenience.
Image: Warner Bros.
In case my opinion of the film wasn't clear, The Replacements sucks. Don't watch it, because you've already seen it. Watch Major League instead. Some of the humor and material shows its age in a not-socially-acceptable way, like The Replacements, but there's actual humor that was written for Major League that still holds up. Besides, there's more of the actual sport it's focusing on than just 3 short arbitrary games.