The Replacements has been criticized for not being entirely accurate when it comes to football. That's not the point of this film though. It wasn't made to be an Oscar contender. It was made for sports fans who want to see a fun story and laugh while watching it. The Replacements delivers on both these aspects. The story's backdrop is a strike among the professional football players with four games left in the season. Jimmy McGinty (Gene Hackman) is brought in to coach the Washington Sentinels and bring in a group of replacement players to finish out the season. The unconventional McGinty picks players that others might not have deemed NFL worthy. The list includes: wide receiver Clifford Franklin (Orlando Jones), linebacker Daniel Bateman (Jon Favreau), kicker Nigel Gruff (Rhys Ifans), and quarterback Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves). Most of the players McGinty picks haven't played football in awhile, but he believes that they have something the spoiled professionals don't, which is heart. The film goes on to tell the story of these replacement players and their fight to get into the playoffs. The players have to come to terms with their fears and learn to trust each other in order to do this. And they have their cheerleading squad, led by Falco's love interest Annabelle Farrell (Brooke Langton), to help them do this. Shane Falco leads the squad in a way that isn't classy or inspirational, because that just wouldn't be their style. And that is the style of the film. It doesn't go out with the aim to be a story that will move you to tears, except maybe through laughter. The film is one to watch when looking for a light hearted story that offers some laughs.

Pretty interesting story about second handed rugby team. BUT, most interesting fact is that team wasn't professional rugby players, but people who were in jail, just a normal people who work their job, like in good old days of amateur sport. Since first team got in strike, they had to somehow continue their championship. Like always, every beginning is hard, they had to meet each others better. They were always fighting and arguing about nothing, but when they met each others better, realize that they got lots of stuff in common, they started playing better and better. But they weren't normal rugby players, they were amateurs, people who work their job and play sport for fun, that is strange in sport of 21th century, isn't it ? Nowadays sport is all about money, there's no more joy or anything more, money, money, money. Well those people didn't care for money, they played for fun and they actually reached something. They reached play-off for their team. At the end they weren't been stalking by commericalist for signing contact for some sneakers or anything else, they just celebrated it and went to their home. They all reached some experience that they will remember for whole their life, that movie should be an example of how sport should be nowadays...The scene i liked the most is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxe-5lJ6R6o&feature=endscreen. Whole team finished in jail and they decided to sing song called "I will survive". Probably the best scene in this movie...

As far as football comedy movies go this is fairly high up on my list. It's most definitely a comedy but still had real moments for the characters with real issues to overcome. Not an exact match but I kind of view this as the football version of Major League. You can tell the characters have real chemistry together and could be actual teammates with how well they interact with each other. Really enjoyed hearing John Madden and Pat Summerall doing the commentary of the games, my favorite football announce team ever by the way.The story itself is your usual loser overcomes the odds sports movies but even with that I didn't care because of how funny the story was.

Well, you can get a chuckle or two out of this film, maybe even find some inspiration or cheer for the underdog, but for people who know ANYTHING about football, this moving is just one mistake after another. Whomever edited this thing should be drummed out of Hollywood. Just go to the goofs section and that might begin to list all the continuity and factual errors. Players on the field, then off the field in the next shot. Jus the problems with how the structure of the team is built makes no sense. Why fire a coach and hire a new one during a strike? Why no backup quarterback? Why are players playing both ways? What is a QB doing on a kickoff team? it goes on and on and drives me crazy.