Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

The Replacements Blu-ray Movie Review

Everybody Is a Star

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 25, 2015

The Replacements was only mildly successful upon its initial release, but it has retained a devoted following because it's the rare sports comedy that even a non-sports fan can enjoy. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone less interested in watching football than my long-suffering wife, but she'll stay in the room—and laugh out loud—for The Replacements.

The screenplay was written by Vince McKewin, an actor turned writer, who co-wrote the 1996 Carol Ballard film, Fly Away Home. That, too, was a kind of underdog story, though told from the point of view of a shy teenage girl, and while it isn't always obvious admidst the raucous antics of The Replacements, McKewin brings the same psychological insight to bear on this classic tale of second chances. Director Howard Deutch began his career working with John Hughes (on Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful and The Great Outdoors), and Deutch is fond of citing Hughes's advice to "keep your comedy real". Writer, director and cast of The Replacements all stuck to that principle, and the film works so well, because, even at its most outlandish, it stands on a foundation of truth about people's hopes and dreams.

The Replacements is a model of efficient setup. A players strike has crippled the Washington Sentinels, but team owner Edward O'Neil (Jack Warden, in his last film) has a chance at the playoffs. With only four games left in the season, O'Neil rehires his former coach, Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman), to assemble a team of replacement players. McGinty demands complete autonomy, and O'Neil agrees, but with one proviso: McGinty has to win three of the four games.

McGinty proceeds to recruit a squad that is definitely not from Central Casting. Though most have some football experience, none are what you'd call "team players". They're all misfits of some kind, guys who have ended up on the sidelines or in the wrong place, and need a second chance, even if they themselves don't know it. One of them, who plays under the name "Ray Smith" to conceal his true identity (Michael Jace, The Shield), is serving a prison sentence and requires a special release from the Governor of Maryland as a favor to O'Neil. Another, Daniel Bateman (Jon Favreau), is a S.W.A.T. cop who enjoys violence too much and needs a better outlet. Others include a Japanese sumo wrestler (Ace Yonamine), a talented tight end who just happens to be deaf (Brian Murphy), a pair of brothers currently working as bodyguards to a rap star (Faizon Love and Michael Taliferro), a born-again preacher with a bum knee (Troy Winbush), a mini-mart stockboy who can outrun anyone but can't catch even a slow softball (Orlando Jones), and a dissipated Welsh soccer player with a gambling problem who can kick a ball from one end of the field to the other (Rhys Ifans).

McGinty sees a common quality in all these players, which he calls "heart". The trick is to motivate them to work together as a team, and to do so in record time. For that minor miracle, the coach turns to Shane Falco (Keanu Reaves), a former star college quarterback, who notoriously crumpled in the 1996 Sugar Bowl and later dropped from sight. McGinty finds him living on a houseboat, where he earns a living scraping barnacles from yachts.

In classic underdog fashion, Falco has to reckon with his past in order to lead his new teammates to victory. McGinty provides the mentoring, but Falco also benefits from the proverbial "love of a good woman" in the person of head cheerleader Annabelle Farrell (Brooke Langton, Melrose Place). The owner of a local bar she inherited from her football fanatic father, Annabelle makes it a rule never to date football players, but of course she breaks her rule for Shane, because she sees in him something she doesn't see in other players. (It's the same quality McGinty sees.)

Annabelle also has her own squad of misfits to deal with, since the regular cheerleaders have walked out in solidarity with the players. After squirming through auditions from numerous unsuitable candidates, she stumbles on the solution of hiring the dancers from a local strip club ("Is lap dancing a style?" asks one of them earnestly.) Their routines scandalize some of the fans, delight others and, best of all, distract the opposing team at just the right moment. Professional sportscasters John Madden and Pat Summerall, whose running commentary throughout the film adds to its sense of realism, seem unfazed by the whole thing.

Falco and McGinty receive unexpected aid in forging team unity from the regular Sentinels who remain on strike, led by star quarterback Eddie Martel (Bret Cullen). They pelt the replacement players with eggs when they first arrive, hassle Shane when he parks his truck in the Sentinels' lot, and pick a bar fight with the entire replacement team after their first game. Nothing unites a group more firmly than being attacked by a common enemy, but it is typical of The Replacements' offbeat and unexpected humor that one of the team's most powerful bonding experiences occurs in a jail cell after the barroom melee, and it has nothing to do with football. A dance routine is involved, performed to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive". If you asked most fans of The Replacements, I suspect they'd say they don't like musicals, but they probably enjoy this scene anyway. It's hard to resist.

The Replacements Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto (The Silence of the Lambs) shot The Replacements on film, for which the single biggest challenge was obtaining consistent lighting while shooting the football scenes (staged at the Baltimore Ravens' stadium) as the sun shifted position throughout the day. I cannot say whether Warner did a new scan for its 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, but the image is certainly impressive: sharp, clear and quite detailed, both in brightly lit exteriors and in slightly dimmer interiors. Even the night shots reveal substantial detail, and the blacks are very good.

As befits a great American sport, the color palette is dominated by rich shades of red, white and blue, with the addition of less saturated green for the grass of the playing field. Anyone who imagines that they're seeing a "teal and orange" wash on this disc (as is so often claimed about Blu-rays in general and Warner Blu-rays in particular) needs to check their set adjustments.

Given the film's length and the extras, Warner Home Video sprung for a BD-50, but in an all-too-common phenomenon with WHV, less than 30 GB of the available space has been used. The average bitrate is 24.89 Mbps, which is adequate, but why does Warner keep settling for "adequate" when the digital real estate is available to do better?

The Replacements Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Replacements features a suitably rambunctious 5.1 surround mix, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, that brings home every hit, groan, grunt, whoosh of a pass and snap of the ball with solid impact. The roar of the crowd is always in the background during games, and the sound mixers have done a fine job of elevating spoken exchanges so that they remain intelligible. A few other scenes are notable for their immersive use of the surround system, e.g., the early scene where we see Falco hard at work underwater on his "day" job. Of course, the barroom brawl between the replacement players and the regulars is filled with crashes, breaking glass and other sounds of mayhem and destruction all around.

John Debney (Draft Day) wrote the musical score, but the more memorable musical presence is the selection of pop songs chosen by Deutch and his music editor, Andrew Silver, to set various moods and comment on the action. Included is the aforementioned "I Will Survive" (which plays a key role in the plot); three songs from the Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge album; Donna Summer's "Bad Girls"; "Every Breath You Take" by the Police; and that old standby, "Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. A cover of "Heroes" by David Bowie and Brian Eno occurs near the end and helps bring The Replacements to a suitable close.

The Replacements Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2000 DVD release of The Replacements.

• Commentary by Director Howard Deutch: Deutch is generous in crediting the contributions of his cast and crew, whether it is cinematographer Tak Fujimoto's framing of shots, various actors' ad libs or the manner in which Gene Hackman or Orlando Jones "co-directed" a scene by restaging it. (It is a credit to Deutch that he listened to their suggestions.) Of particular interest is the director's description of how various portions of the film were constructed in the editing room, changing radically from the order and form in which they were shot. For example, the entire cheerleading tryout sequence was originally supposed to play continuously instead of being interspersed with scenes on the field.



• Making the Plays: An Actor's Guide to Football (480i; 1.33:1; 9:02): This featurette describes how the actors trained as football players, with emphasis on Keanu Reeves' training as a quarterback.



• The Making of The Replacements (480i; 1.33:1; 15:04): This HBO "First Look" is hosted by Orlando Jones, who calls himself "the replacement host" after Reeves, Hackman and Deutch allegedly declined. Along with glimpses of the film, this EPK offers its own humorous scenes. It's the kind of thing HBO used to do well and doesn't do anymore.



• Trailer (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 2:29): "Call them out of shape, call them out of practice, call them out of control, just don't call them . . . out of tune."

The Replacements Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Gene Hackman previously played a coach in the classic sports film Hoosiers (1986), where he shepherded a small town high school basketball team from obscurity to statewide fame. But Hoosiers wasn't a comedy, and it wasn't about second chances (although Hackman's character was getting one). It was the sports equivalent of a Horatio Alger story about coming from nowhere and, by dint of courage and hard work, being every bit as successful as those who had a head start in life. The Replacements is about older players being led by an even older coach, who's seen enough of life to understand the secret of greatness. As McGinty says in his final words, these players won't get tickertape parades or endorsement deals, but they've been part of something great that will stay with them, whatever else they do. Beneath the laughter, The Replacements has a serious point about the transformative power of doing something well for its own sake. Highly recommended.