Mean Machine (2001)

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Directed by Barry Skolnick.

Starring David Hemmings, David Kelly, Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones, Vas Blackwood.

The classic Burt Reynolds football-behind-bars flick The Longest Yard crosses the pond and gets an appropriate British accent in the process in this rough-and-tumble mixture of sports and action-comedy. Danny Mehan (Vinnie Jones) was one of the biggest stars in British football (what Americans call soccer), until he was caught rigging a game during a championship tournament. In the wake of this scandal, Danny's career takes a nosedive and his life spins out of control, until he finally ends up in prison for three years on an assault and battery conviction. Danny discovers there are a number of football fans behind bars who still hate him for fixing the game, but Danny has one powerful fan in this prison. The warden (David Hemmings) is a devoted football supporter with a taste for gambling; he's been trying to assemble a semi-pro team comprised of the prison's guards, but Danny is just smart enough to know this would seal his fate with his fellow prisoners. Instead, he offers to put together a team of inmates, who can play practice games against the guards. A new inmate, Sykes (John Forgeham), gets wind of Danny's idea and arranges an exhibition match between Danny's new team and the guards, though Sykes' motivation is more than just good fun. A powerful bookie, Sykes lost a fortune on the game Danny threw, and expects betting to be heavy for this game. If Danny and his men win, Sykes could make back the fortune he lost, but if the guards come out ahead, Danny's goose is cooked. Can Danny turn a gang of losers, misfits, and violent psychopaths -- including muscle-bound lunatic Monk (Jason Statham), creepy but loyal Billy the Limpit (Danny Dyer), tough guy Massive (Vas Blackwood), pyromaniac Nitro (Robbie Gee), and enthusiastic but out-of-shape Raj (Omid Djalili) -- into a proper team with a fighting chance of winning? Mean Machine was produced by Matthew Vaughn, who was also behind Guy Ritchie's tough-but-stylish crime comedies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Star Vinnie Jones, by the way, enjoyed a career as a professional footballer in Great Britain before turning to acting. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

lost interest.

Derivative, brutal, pointless, cynical, and stupid, Mean Machine still manages to be fairly entertaining. It's a jazzed up remake of the equally brutal and entertaining, but slightly more complex Robert Aldrich film The Longest Yard. Aldrich, director of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Dirty Dozen, was an original, and The Longest Yard's bone-crunching machismo seemed more earned than it does in Mean Machine, where it sometimes comes off as posturing, not on the part of characters, but on the part of the actors and director. The Longest Yard was a cornerstone of Burt Reynolds' career, and his performance as Paul Crewe holds up as one of his best, because his pretty-boy looks and natural swaggering smarminess makes the other inmates' antagonism easy to understand. There's never really any doubt about Danny Meehan's character in Mean Machine, which gives Meehan a less dynamic arc than Crewe, and makes the film less interesting. Vinnie Jones, as Meehan, is a surprisingly charismatic lead, but unlike Reynolds, he's clearly a rough guy, and from the streets, so the other inmates' initial antagonism doesn't ring true. The film also relies a bit heavily on Guy Ritchie-style editing and camera trickery (it was produced by Ritchie's production company, Ska Films, and shares many cast members with Ritchie's first two films). Still, things move at a swift pace, and one virtue that Mean Machine shares with its predecessor is that they both get the sports stuff right. The long, dirty soccer match that ends the film is its highlight, even though the outcome is never much in doubt. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

Tags: remake , britain , gambling , prison , soccer
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