Just like running
out at the old Plough Lane
 |
|
Vinnie Jones
in a lead role - shock. Vinnie Jones plays a hard footballer - no
shock there then.
Nigel
Bell
It would be
very easy to, and some reviewers will no doubt, dismiss this film
simply because it has Vinnie Jones as the leading man.
And while the
ex-Wimbledon Crazy Gang member shows he's no Tom Hanks or Cruise,
he does prove he's a lot better than, say, John Wark in Escape
To Victory.
While parallels
will be made to that film this is actually a remake of Robert Aldrich's
The Longest Yard.
As such, and
to use a bit of footballing cliché, this movie is definitely
passable.
Jones plays
Danny Meehan, one time England captain whose career came unstuck
when he deliberately gave away a penalty against the Germans to
clear his debts.
On the bottle,
he assaults a couple of police officers and gets sent down for three
years.
His fellow cons
are far from in awe of the one time national hero. As is pointed
out to him by an inmate, most of them are inside because they had
nothing to start off with. Meehan had everything and threw it all
away.
His life inside
only become tolerable when he stops inmate Massive from a going
over by one of the warders. Meehan gets beaten up himself but earns
the respect of the prison.
Ah ha. The stage
is set, the rehabilitation is begun, Meehan can become a hero again.
It all reaches
a climax with a football match between the cons and the screws.
It's nasty, it's bloody, it's predictable and if anything it's overlong,
but football fans will recognise some nice touches from the the
two lags on commentating duty.
 |
| Gazza gets
his revenge for that "grabbing" incident |
Mean Machine
certainly pulls no punches in showing the brutality of the the prison
regime. Violence is swift and painful.
There are nods
to other films, such as when Meehan is in solitary and given a tennis
ball to show off his soccer skills. Shades of Steve McQueen The
Great Escape cooler king methinks.
What's surprising
is that for a leading man Vinnie doesn't actually say much and for
a supposed hard-man, when put up against all the nutters in jail,
he doesn't seem that hard (which can only be good if he's trying
to broaden his acting range).
Biggest shock,
however, is David Hemmings. One time glamour boy of the 60s and
70s, he's now piled on the pounds, has amazingly long eyebrows and,
when you look more closely, seems to have morphed into former Prime
Minister Harold Wilson.
Definitely a
lads film but more than just a football caper.
|
