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It's been a good few years for Terry Crews, the NFL player-turned-actor, even if you include White Chicks. Hell, especially if you include White Chicks, in which two Wayanses spend two hours dressed up as matching Pillsbury Doughboys in drag, yet get fewer laughs combined than does Crews, who plays a burly, bald, white-chick-chasing black man who sings along to Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles."

Given that the singalong scene is approximately the eighth or ninth time the movie goes to the well for exactly the same Vanessa Carlton joke -- along with the fact that said scene occurs long after most audience members have been numbed into a stupor, Chris Rock's Oscar night interviewees notwithstanding -- is testament to Crews's surprisingly deft comedic touch.

Also possibly testament to Crews's deft comedic touch: Soul Plane, although we doubt it. Somehow Soul Plane doesn't call to mind the word "deft."

If Crews were simply a burly, bald, former NFL player, he'd probably spend the rest of his career picking up Keith David's sloppy seconds -- in other words, playing roles like, say, "Big Bartender" in Deliver Us From Eva or "8 Ball" in Malibu's Most Wanted or appearing as "T-Money" in the extreme sports TV show Battle Dome, which is what he spent the first years of his post-NFL acting career doing.

But because Crews can actually be funny (as can Keith David, it should be noted) he's carving out a nice niche as a go-to big, burly, bald black man in urban comedies such as Soul Plane and reputable indie films such as Baaaaaaaadassssssssssssss!. (There's probably not that many As and Ss in the title, but we're just covering our aaaaasssssssssssseeessssss.)

And, if that big, burly, bald, black man is also called upon to play a little football -- as Crews is in this week's remake of The Longest Yard -- well, who could be a better choice? Peyton Manning? Last we checked, he was neither big, bald, burly, black, funny nor retired. And no one wants to hear him sing "A Thousand Miles."