Best Keanu: “Traffic.”

There’s a scene in The Replacements where Annabelle, a cheerleader played by Brooke Langton, tries to get the attention of Shane, played by Keanu Reeves, across the football field. I am sure Langton was doing excellent face acting in this scene. But I completely missed it, because I couldn’t take my eyes off of her cleavage.

There are lots of boobs in The Replacements. In fact, it’s also a kind of subplot, as Annabelle struggles to hire new squad members and ends up asking a couple of strippers who auditioned to bring their friends. In one scene, the squad gyrates to the crowd, and Annabelle has a contemplative look on her face.

Since the character had just remarked to Shane that the cheerleaders make $50/day, I thought, “oh, maybe she’s realizing how exploited they are, and she’s going to lead them in a walkout.” (Because in The Replacements, the football players are on strike, leading the team to bring in random folks to play to round out the season). I honestly thought that.

But no, of course, Annabelle was simply thinking that the squad should gyrate not toward the crowd but the opposing team to distract them. That’s what they do, and it works.

The Replacements isn’t offensive. It’s just very, very, very typical of its time. If you want to get serious about it, watching this movie is an interesting exercise to realize how many things you once thought nothing of, but now hit you smack in the face. Gyrating cheerleaders. The casual talk of concussions (“that’s why girls don’t play the game”). David Denman, a hearing actor playing a deaf football player — using what I suspect is made-up ASL, although I can’t be sure since I don’t know ASL myself. The racial stereotypes. And it goes on.

It’s also pretty formulaic. Keanu Reeves is in it, playing the hottest member of the football team who blew his shot in the big leagues and always chokes when the game is on the line. He eventually does fall for Annabelle, or rather Shane and Annabelle fall for one another, in a too-long scene where they literally stare at each other across a bar and he walks slowly toward her to the background music of “Every Breath You Take.”

At the very end of the movie, when the replacement players win a big game, or are about to (it’s all a blur in my memory), Shane kisses Annabelle on the field. His hand is on her bare waist for just a moment before he quickly moves it up, as if Keanu was shocked by how little clothing Brooke was actually wearing and was struggling to find fabric. Ah, it’s all clean fun in the early 2000s.

This also feels like an easy role for Keanu. It hits all of his distinct features: his face, body, voice, the good-guy sensibility. You might think the long-gazing bar scenes were designed to appeal to a certain segment of moviegoer, while the (too) long football scenes were meant to appeal to the sports fans. The upshot is a largely formulaic film that still has a life because of streaming.

It wasn’t my thing. I struggled to keep watching, even when there were plenty of boobs (and let’s be honest, somewhat disturbing ribcages) and Keanu to look at.

Early on in The Replacements I got distracted by some background music. I recognized the singer’s voice but couldn’t quite put my finger on who it was. Melissa Etheridge? No. Who is that? I had to look it up and discovered the song, “Ride,” was sung by Amanda Marshall. Hey, whatever happened to Amanda Marshall? As it turns out, she disappeared from the music scene about 20 years ago. I suppose it says something about how pervasive her music was in my life at one point that even with that gap in time, I still knew her voice.

So, on that note, here’s a little Amanda, like some of us remember her.

May 2022