Let's face it. Just about any sports film intended to make you laugh these days demands a certain amount of denial on the part of moviegoers-especially sports fans. The Replacements is no exception. Little things like characters intentionally not referring to the NFL by name, opting instead for the generic and less litigious "professional football" as if the Arena Football League or Vince McMahon's XFL (both professional leagues) carried as much prestige. Filmmakers should also be more careful with football fundamentals like ball placement and point values.

The Replacements also relies on cliches from football movies of yore ranging from The Longest Yard's football-as-a-weapon scene to the standard fat-guy linemen, colorful kickers, and washed-up quarterbacks getting their second chance at glory.

But we say that like it's a bad thing. For an armchair linebacker and pudgy but quick wannabe tight end, the cliches, stripper cheerleaders, and building goosebumps as the clocked ticked down in the big game, made for a nearly perfect (and rare) football flick.

Based on the NFL players strike of 1987 in which everyday schmoes were plucked from their day jobs as construction workers and toll booth operators to continue the season without the regular players.

The movie opens with Shane "Footsteps" Falco (Keanu Reeves) -- once a promising Ohio State quarterback whose disastrous Sugar Bowl performance killed his career -- at work scraping barnacles off his boat when he finds his All American trophy half-buried in the sand and starts to think about the missed opportunities it represents.

Reality sometimes dictates that we control our own destiny. We determine how our lives will be and rarely do we get the second chance we sometimes covet.

Falco and the replacement players from the Sentinels get their second chance. The rag-tag squad includes a chain-smoking Welsh soccer player (Rhys Ifans), a hearing-impaired tight end (David Denman), a furloughed prisoner (Michael Jace), two big body guards (Michael "Bear" Taliferro and Faizon Love), a Sumo wrestler (Ace Yonamine), and a speedy convenience store clerk (Orlando Jones), and an old fashioned coach played by Gene Hackman (complete with Tom Landry fedora) determined to make them winners.

It's John Favreau as the insane linebacker Daniel Bateman who steals the show. Bateman represents more than any other Sentinel, the type of player football fans want to cheer for. Playing with reckless abandon, he hits like a cross between Bill Romanwski and Lawrence Taylor-without the drug busts. Ironically, Bateman is a police officer off the field.

The Replacements also has all the smashmouth intensity and in-your-face hits as Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday with less-distracting camera angles and uniforms.

You may have to be a football fan to truly enjoy the funniest moments of the film, but the laughs are genuine. The Washington Sentinels do everything every fan hopes to see, and underdogs with heart triumphing over egomaniacal millionaires is a theme anyone but the NFL players representative can stand behind.

Like the players it represents, what the movie lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in laughter and heart.

4 stars out of 5

You're not even a has-been; you're a never-was!" a striking pro football player cracks about Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), the honorable, stoic fill-in quarterback -- yes, scab -- in "The Replacements."

Your team has to win three of the next four games to make it to the playoffs ... and the players have just gone on strike. What do you do? Call Keanu.

Story
"The Replacements" says it all. A ragtag team of wannabes and has-beens is assembled by veteran coach Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman) to fill in for the picketing members of the Washington Sentinels. As you would expect, there's a little bit of everything on this menagerie of misfits: a sumo wrestler, a born-again Christian, a cop, a prisoner (whose warden conveniently grants him temporary parole), a chain-smoking soccer player and a deaf guy. Leading the pack is Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), a barnacle-busting, bowl-blowing quarterback who's given a chance to redeem himself. You have three guesses at how it all turns out and the first two don't count. But while the cheese threat looms throughout, scribe Vince McKewin ("Fly Away Home") successfully navigates a minefield of cliches and scores a sincere albeit predictable touchdown.

Acting
With a pair of Oscars in his locker, Hackman is a brow-raising but much-appreciated addition to this team. Though his character is one-dimensional, his mere presence elevates the picture and lends it credibility at critical moments, such as when McGinty goes head-to-head with the team's owner (Jack Warden) over the fate of Falco. Reeves is affable as always, and the 25 pounds he put on for the role really shows. But the best performances belong to Brett Cullen, who plays the Sentinels' arrogant regular quarterback, and Jon Favreau, an overzealous attack dog on the field.

Direction
Howard Deutch ("Pretty in Pink," "Grumpier Old Men") delivers a football movie that should appeal to football fans and nonfans alike. The many scenes set on the gridiron are lively, witty and fast-moving. His emphasis here is not on the play of the game, but rather the game of the players. Despite the number of them, the team members are easily identified by their idiosyncrasies. There's very little character development ... it's simply not needed here. At no point does Deutch take this story or his subjects too seriously, and just when you think you've seen this play before, he calls a time out.

Bottom Line
Keanu wins one for the Gipper.

There's a howling improbability at the core of "The Replacements," the genial if uneven comedy that filmed at Baltimore's PSINet stadium last year. Keanu Reeves plays a quarterback who leads a rag-tag team of ne'er-do-wells to victory by dint of his magnetic personality and irresistible leadership skills. Reeves may be able to play excellent adventurers and affectless cyber-noir heroes convincingly, but the Gipper he ain't.

Our Review:

Hut-hut-hike! Keanu Reeves goes from a barnacle scraper to QB stud faster than you can say "Superbowl Shuffle" when a football strike threatens to end the season. So, it's up to wily coach Gene Hackman, a Matrix-less Reeves--whose only claim to fame is a Sugar Bowl blowout loss--and a bunch of misfit, replacement players to keep the Washington Sentinels' playoff hopes alive. Sure, it's a repeat play of The Longest Yard and Major League, but here, the colorful cast of scabs--gangsters, gamblers, inmates and a berserk SWAT officer--all shine in their own disturbed ways. Reeves is dutiful and square-jawed in his Cinderella shoes, but he's out-maneuvered by Orlando Jones and Jon Favreau's freakish characters. And a forced love story deserves a penalty card, but that's no reason to eject this movie. There's plenty of smartly-choreographed gridiron drama and locker-room laughs (and former exotic dancers-turned replacement cheerleaders) that'll keep crowds anticipating the next touchdown.

This is the kind of movie you don't have to watch too closely. You can go buy popcorn several times, and you won't miss anything. As directed by Howard Deutch (``Pretty in Pink''), this is not nearly as vulgar as it might have been. In fact, with a PG-13 rating, it comes across as rather likable.

Studio Honcho: Sort of like a replacement director.

Pitch Man: Yeah, life imitating art. Oh, and I didn't tell you the best part. How about a little Full Monty action, like where the guys get together -- maybe in their jock straps or something -- and do this choreographed dance to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive. The women'll love it, and survival is a big theme nowadays.

SH: Hmmm, I'm getting there. But I'm still leery of football flicks. North Dallas Forty, The Longest Yard, they did some business but that was years ago, and the recent history isn't good. Any Given Sunday tanked.

PM: Yeah, but it took itself seriously. And it had Pacino -- you know how he gets when he's trying to act his way out of a turkey. We got no problem like that here. We got barfing sumos and stripper cheerleaders, and Hackman never overacts and Keanu never acts period. Trust me, our bird will fly -- remember, this turkey's got heart.

SH: Okay, I'm sold. Done and done. The critics will hate it, of course, but it could go as high as two or three in the opening weekend, and we'll make our bucks through video. Give it a summer release, which means we can bring it to the video stores close to Super Bowl weekend. It'll make for a good tie-in.

PM: You're a genius, chief.

SH: Watch your mouth -- I'm a survivor.

It would be conveniently glib to say that "The Replacements" shows what happens when replacement writers and directors get to make films, but the harsh truth is that the reverse is true. Both director Howard Deutch ("Grumpier Old Men") and writer Vince McKewin (everything from "Rush Hour" to "Operation Dumbo Drop") are veteran Hollywood players, and the result is a haphazard film about half as sophisticated as the average beer commercial.

As for the actors, every single one of them, even star Keanu Reeves, has been noticeably better in previous work. Jon Favreau and Brooke Langton were better in "Swingers," Orlando Jones was better in "Liberty Heights," Rhys Ifans was better in "Notting Hill" (as Hugh Grant's dotty roommate). As for Gene Hackman, it's not so much that he's been better elsewhere (that's a given) as that his performance as Washington Sentinels Coach Jimmy McGinty is such a pale copy of the memorable work he did as Robert Redford's coach in "Downhill Racer."When McGinty gets hired by owner Edward O'Neil (the venerable Jack Warden) to assemble and coach the replacement Sentinels for the final four games of the season, he is not without ideas of his own about player selection. "We're gonna go a different way," he tells his boss, by which he means hire a bunch of misfits and weirdos, each of whom has one particular talent. For instance: Clifford Franklin (Jones), a super speed demon who can't hold onto the ball; Nigel "The Leg" Gruff (Ifans), a Welsh place-kicker who drinks, smokes and gambles to excess;Daniel Bateman (Favreau), an L.A. cop prone to excessive violence;Jumbo Fumiko (Ace Yonamine), a bulky Japanese sumo wrestler.

"It's not just about the coin," says Jerry Maguire's Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.). "It's about the kwan."

What is kwan? That supercharged je ne c'est quoi that amps the heart, turbos the soul, lets the spirit sprout wings and achieve elegance, victory, greatness -- if only for a moment. It's an elemental hunger for self-actualization, grace in action. Or, as Mr. Balboa would say, "It's the eye of the tiger."

As fashionable as it is to bash his squinty stoicism and surfer dude exclamations, Keanu Reeves succeeds in movies that, like The Replacements, free up his boyish charm and buff bod (and sometimes have mind-blowing special effects and kick-ass kung fu). So while The Replacements is dumb - make that beyond dumb - by anyone'sstandards, Reeves' amiable turn bolsters the film and emphasizes the guilty pleasure of watching slick, formulaic fantasy.

This year? To borrow a phrase, "They're back."

"The Replacements," sadly, looks to be the best of the breed this weekend. "The Replacements" is football's equivalent of "Major League," the boisterous but sometimes-embarrassing 1989 baseball comedy. Actually, "The Replacements" isn't even that good; it throws a lot but its completion percentage stinks.

The real players (also called "bitchy millionaires"), we're told with the repetitive hammering of keys by screenwriter Vince McKewin, lacked "heart." Brains and courage are never brought into the analogy, but Jon Favreau ("Swingers") and Reeves must have been short on one and long on the other to have committed to this production.

The testosterone sputters like one of those plastic honey bears that's almost empty. And there's a love story. Ugh.

The most compelling aspect of the film - that these guys were given a fleeting second chance to recapture glory, only to soon lose it again forever - is like a bobbled end-zone reception that's ultimately dropped. Kind of like the month of August for movies.

Movies don't get more shamelessly manipulative than ''The Replacements.'' On the other hand, it pushes all of its formulaic buttons - it has no other kind - effectively. It's often entertaining despite itself, thanks mostly to a screenful of surprisingly engaging performances. Let's start with Gene Hackman, who trades pretty outrageously on his role in ''Hoosiers.'' Here he plays the coach of a team of scrubs hired to play out the season for Washington, D.C.'s pro football franchise during a players' strike. His little trademark humorless chuckle, a device designed to give this or that character time to think his way out of a jam, is worth whatever the producers paid him.

If Hackman is reliable, Keanu Reeves is the surprise. Usually, Reeves's performances run a narrow gamut from wooden to comatose. Here, however, he's never seemed less zombified and more relaxed. Perhaps it's the unchallenging nature of the material. As a college quarterback, Shane Falco, who gets a second chance to show what he can do after destroying his football career with a disastrous Sugar Bowl game, Reeves is simply more present than he's ever seemed before, even in his embarrassing love scene. What's embarrassing is that the film's producers have seen fit to move the quarterback in for the big kiss to a counterpoint of Jack Madden's voice on TV saying, in the context of a game broadcast, ''All it takes is one big play.''

Does the quarterback win the big game and get the head cheerleader (played with blue-collar sparkle by Brooke Langton)? One needn't be a seer to guess the answer. There's nothing subtle about ''The Replacements.'' All the plays are photogenic long passes, runs, and field goals. No mundane grinding out a few yards at a time. Nor is there any doubt that the film, at its most basic level, is about establishing your manhood by pulping the other guys, whether it's the striking players waiting menacingly in a parking lot and then walking into a bar, looking for trouble, or merely the other teams from Detroit, Phoenix, San Diego, and, climactically, archfiends from Dallas who dress like the Oakland Raiders.

Some of the sting is removed from the neanderthal material by the charisma of the various players, who look more convincing doing a disco dance to ''I Will Survive'' than on the field. These range from Jon Favreau's mad-dog defensive lineman to Faizon Love's and Michael ''Bear'' Taliferro's hulking brothers to Rhys Ifans's cigarette-puffing placekicker from Wales to Brian Murphy's brilliant but deaf athlete denied a chance until now. The cliches in ''The Replacements'' pile up more relentlessly than a herd of linesmen as the losers bond and become winners, playing for pride because they know they'll be unemployed as soon as the strike is over.

Bottom line: ''The Replacements'' is more entertaining than it has any business being, especially when Hackman's coach is forced to verbalize the words to ''You Gotta Have Heart,'' originally sung by a Washington Senators baseball manager in the musical ''Damn Yankees.'' The film's heart-hitting temps don't have to work nearly as hard to overcome the other teams as they do to overcome the script's blatant rigging. Although ''The Replacements'' is easier to take than I would have thought possible, any ESPN commercial at all leaves it in the dust when it comes to imaginative firepower. In the end, ''The Replacements'' made me wonder if I wasn't perhaps too hard on ''Any Given Sunday.''

This story ran on page D5 of the Boston Globe on 8/11/2000.