The replacement cheerleaders have a routine of their own Danny Bateman, the psycho police officer linebacker and Nigel Gruff, played by Rhys Ifans, the Welsh kicker who is "wiry" Keanu Reeves is the QB and pulls the best cheerleader in the process The Replacements In 1987, the NFL players went on strike and the league continued for three games with replacement players. The story of the Bucs' own "B-team" can be found by clicking here, but the story lives on in true Hollywood style some 15 years later. Gene Hackman is the coach of the Washington Sentinels and puts together a team of misfits and miscreants in true film style. You know they're going to be bad, you know they're going to be different, and you know they're going to win - but you just don't care. This is two hours of gridiron humour at its very best and this film as quickly established itself as one of my favourite five films of all time. All the game sequences were filmed at Baltimore's PSI Net Stadium, and the DVD has some special features that talks about the making of the film. They shot four plays from the final game at half-time of a Ravens' pre-season game and had eight minutes to get all the crew on to the field, shoot the scenes and get off again. Hence the 65,000 crowd you see in the sequences were all really there. There are simply so many great moments and lines in the film, there wouldn't be enough space to list them all. One of my particular favourites is when QB Keanu Reeves runs the ganutlet of the striking players on a picket line outside the stadium. They had turned his car over the previous day and are about to do it again when his two guards, both former bodyguards, turn up. "We'll take care of this" they tell Reeves and they do in hilarious fashion. Rhys Ifans, he of Notting Hill fame, is superb as the Welsh kicker, Nigel "The Leg" Gruff, probably the only player in league history to smoke a fag during a play. You've got a psycho linebacker who is actually a police officer, a speedster wide receiver who couldn't catch a cold, and a Japanese sumo wrestler on the offensive line. John Madden and Pat Summerall do all the game commentaries and are pretty funny, particularly one scene when they are talking about the Sentinels' player who has been released from prison to play for the team. "It says here his name is Smith, but there is no college, no high school, just that he has been a resident of the state of Maryland for the past five years" says the non-understanding Madden. Keanu Reeves makes a passable attempt at playing QB even if the DVD reveals his technical advisor was NFL not-so-great, TJ Rubley. The action sequences are believable, Hackman is an excellent coach, and the whole film just flows from start to finish. And until you've seen the alternative cheerleader tryouts, you simply haven't lived. Nor the point in one of the games where the replacement cheerleaders, all strippers from a local lap dancing club, manage to draw the entire opposing team into a false start penalty with some interesting new routines! In short, buy it. You won't be disappointed.