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The Replacements
Maverick old-guard coach Jimmy McGinty is hired in the wake of a players' strike to help the Washington Sentinels advance to the playoffs. But that impossible dream hinges on whether his replacements can hunker down and do the job. So, McGinty dusts off his secret dossier of ex-players who never got a chance (or screwed up the one they were given) and knits together a bad-dream team of guys who just may give the Sentinels their title shot.
2000 · Directed by Howard Deutch · 118 min · Comedy · Screenplay in the scene database · 6 frames
Tagline
Throw the ball. Catch the girl. Keep it simple.
Plot
A professional football league is hit with a players' strike with four games left in the season. Washington Sentinels owner Edward O'Neil calls a former coach of his, Jimmy McGinty, telling him that the league's going to finish the regular season with replacement players and asks McGinty to coach the Sentinels the rest of the season, adding that winning three of the last four games will get them into the playoffs. McGinty accepts on the condition that he can sign the players he wants without O'Neil's interference.
McGinty pulls together players of varying talents who he believes can make an entertaining, if not winning, team. For quarterback, he chooses Shane Falco, a former All-American from Ohio State whose career went to pieces after a lopsided Sugar Bowl loss; he now lives on a houseboat in a Washington, D.C. marina and makes a living doing hull maintenance on private yachts. The striking players greet the replacement players with hostility, calling them "scabs" and throwing eggs at them; Falco gets his truck overturned. Head cheerleader Annabelle Farrell, who has to find new cheerleaders since the originals apparently walked out in sympathy with the players, hires strippers when the other tryouts go badly. After practice, she drives Falco home and surprises him with her vast football knowledge.
The replacements' first game is against Detroit, and the team struggles to get along. Falco tries to rally them, but on the last play, he falters when he sees a pending blitz and calls an audible, which falls short of the winning touchdown. At a local bar, the replacements are brooding over their loss when some of the striking players, led by their primadonna quarterback Eddie Martel, arrive and taunt them. Falco stands up to Martel, a brawl ensues, and the replacements are arrested. In jail they bond, dancing to the Gloria Gaynor song "I Will Survive" before McGinty bails them out. Farrell meets Falco the next day and tells him that he's the first quarterback she's seen in a long time who cares more for his teammates than himself, and a connection starts to grow between them.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Vince McKewin
- Cinematography: Tak Fujimoto
- Edited by: Seth Flaum, Bud S. Smith
- Music: John Debney
- Production design: Dan Bishop
- Produced by: Dylan Sellers
Cast
- Keanu Reeves as Shane Falco
- Gene Hackman as Jimmy McGinty
- Brooke Langton as Annabelle Farrell
- Orlando Jones as Clifford Franklin
- Faizon Love as Jamal Jackson
- Jon Favreau as Daniel Bateman
- Rhys Ifans as Nigel 'The Leg' Gruff
- Keith David as Lindell
- Ace Yonamine as Jumbo
- Troy Winbush as Walter Cochran
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures, Bel Air Entertainment, Dylan Sellers Productions
- Budget: $50,000,000
- Box office: $50,054,511
- Themes: strike, sports, american football, coach, misfit, nfl (national football league)
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