A bit like a Laurel and Hardy film with an adult certificate or the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business with brass knuckles. It's Cool Hand Luke prison fare all over again - except that the name of the game is not escaping but American football: to be precise a match between the prison inmates and their guards, in which winning comes only marginally before maiming, choking and generally venting the hatred of years out there on the field. Burt Reynolds gives one of his most mobile performances as the short-term prisoner beaten out of training the 'Guardsmen' by the head warder (Ed Lauter), then conned by the warden (Eddie Albert in a most un-Albert-like role) into training a prisoners' team to provide an easy first game for the Guardsmen. Of course, the easy game turns out to be anything but, although by this time you'll already be a jump ahead of the plot. With Robert Aldrich at the directorial reins, it all works very happily indeed, mixing its Seventies violence with pleasant, old-fashioned dialogue and some hard-nut humour.

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