Movie Analysis Essay on The Longest Yard

Introduction

Paul Crewe is a character played by Adam Sandler in the movie The Longest Yard produced in 2005 (Williams, 2016). Paul Crew's fame as a footballer fades when a drunk driver incident lands him in Allenville State Penitentiary. His athletics skills is noted by Warden Hazen (James Cromwell) requests him to assemble a team of convicts, to square off in a big football game against the guards. With the help of his fellow convicts Caretaker (Chris Rock), and Nate Scarborough (Burt Reynolds) who was an old legend football coach (Williams, 2016). They create a new football team to take on Warden Hazen's team. As a way to avoid a longer sentence, after three years sentence for crashing the car, Crew and his inmates were to take a free shot against the guards. They manage to win the game to prove that the democratic system was the right leadership style.

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Paul becomes a leader in the movie when he decides to have a football challenge against the guard. He portrays several leadership skills that made the team to win the challenge. Democratic leadership is a leadership style where a leader let those whom he leads do what they want, but they had to do it in his or her way. At first, Crew faces a challenge of dislike by his inmates, but Caretaker befriends him leading to his death. Caretaker names the team Mean Machine. Even though Paul was disliked by the inmates, after the offer, he proceeded to ask help from the same people who hated him (Williams, 2016).

After the death of Caretaker (killed when he turned off a radio that was a bomb), he takes up leadership to lead his team. When Turley beats a guard Swatowski, Crew finds himself in a tricky situation whether he has to be loyal to his fellow inmate or keep himself out of jail; he made Turley apologize to the warden on the first play of the game. The guard had hoped to extend his sentence in Allenille prison if the convicts win the game from three years to twenty-five years by pinning the death of Caretaker on him. Some of the characteristics that made Crew that made him a good leader are; irreverent, sarcastic, and regretful. He faced many challenges like bribed to lose the game and taking sides with the warden when an inmate hit the guard. As a leader, Paul Crew managed to win the game by 2 points conviction even after being accused of shaving points in a game. Being an ex-footballer, team manager, and coach, he wins the game because of self-respect.

Even though he was accused of shaving points to the game, as a leader, he encouraged his inmates to win the game. There are different ways a leader can promote an individual to win by not encouraging only one person to succeed, but everyone in the team (Clark, & Kayes, 2019). Just like Crew did, he helped every teammate to put forth their best efforts because he firmly believes they can beat the guards (opponents). A leader should also motivate his team (Clark, & Kayes,2019). Crew motivates the team members by telling them that the guards are scared, and as a result, they will win even though the guards attempted to sabotage their practice by flooding the football field. To succeed in leadership, a leader should encourage determination, commitment, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, and respect for authority for the team.

Some of the workplace complications Paul Crew faced as a leader to the football organizations was interpersonal conflict (Cartwright, 2017). When Turley beat the guard, he finds it as a challenge who should apologize to the other. He weighs between being disliked by his fellow inmates when he makes Turley apologizes to the guard or ignoring the insult and increase his sentence in prison. Crew faced harassment; he is harassed by the guards when told that if the prisoners win the game, they will pin Caretaker's death on him. He overcomes the harassment by ignoring the threat and encouraging the team that they will win since the guards seem scared. Gossips is another workplace complications that many leaders face. As a leader in the football team, Crew faces a challenge of gossips when Caretaker is found dead in his cell with Paul's picture on his hands, a gift Caretaker intended to give to him. Some inmates said that Crew was the one who was supposed to die because they disliked him.

Discrimination is also another challenge that Crew faced as a leader; we find that before he recruited his team, many inmates discriminated him that he will not win (Cartwright, 2017). Some challenged him in a basketball challenge, yet they knew he was an ex-footballer. Paul approaches the African Americans, and all of them decline him, but Deacon challenges him to a game of basketball. Through his determination to win Deacon to his team, he barely loses the game; as a result, Earl Meggot decides to join the group. There is a belief that it is impossible to have personalities in the workplace work perfectly together; instead, everyone's roles and expectations result in conflict.

Another challenge Crew faced when he was a footballer was low motivation and job satisfaction. In the team as the quarterback was that he was accused of shaving points in a game and had to quit. Becoming an ex-footballer was a change he did not positively, and he started drinking and insulating a police officer. The drinking habit landed him in jail after a car accident after colliding police cars chasing him to arrest him for insulting a police officer. He also resumes his position of quarterback for the Mean Machine team and encouraged the team to win.

Conclusion

In conclusion, leadership requires a leader to have self -respect to act as a role model for his team members. Through self- esteem, we find that everybody the leader manages will have the right to do whatever they want, but after seeking permission from the leader. Having a hardworking spirit is also another skill for good leadership. A leader should try to take part in all the activities undertaken by the team members as a way to show that to succeed, they should work hard as a team, and no one should feel superior to the other.

References

Clark, R. M., & Kayes, A. B. (2019). Building Leadership Storytelling Skills: A Collaboration between Management and Theater Students. Management Teaching Review, 2379298119855943. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2379298119855943

Cartwright, S. (2017). Workplace well-being: responsibilities, challenges, and future directions. A Research Agenda for Human Resource Management. Edward Elgar Publishing. Retrieved from https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781785362958/9781785362958.00012.xml

Williams, I. (2016). American Football Terminology in Slovenian: Subtitling in the Movie The Longest Yard (Doctoral dissertation, Univerza v Mariboru, Filozofska fakulteta).Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/67604867.pdf