Goals in the gaol

>> Mean Machine is good for kicks

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Ostensibly a remake of the ’70s Burt Reynolds vehicle The Longest Yard, trading Yank football for Limey football but set in a prison all the same, Mean Machine owes as much to Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. Not only does it bear the logo of Ska Films, Guy Ritchie’s outfit, but it’s produced by his cohort Matthew Vaughn, stars several faces familiar from Lock, Stock and sports a look, tempo and soundtrack cast in precisely that mould.
Here’s the short form: Danny Meehan, a former football champ who fell from glory after throwing a match, gets tossed in the clink over a drunken scrap with a pair of bobbies. Ritchie fanatics will be happy to see his regular Vinnie Jones, a former football champ in his own right, handling this lead role.

Meehan’s hardly a hero on the inside—as one old con points out, “You had everything they ever dreamed of, and you threw it all away.” His skills on the field do not go unnoticed, though, not by the warden nor by the governor (Brit-mod icon David Hemmings, whose eyebrows have taken on a career of their own). Meehan negotiates his way to coaching a team of inmates (thugs, dolts and ne’er-do-wells, the lot) for a cons vs. screws footy match.

Various prison-yard antics lead up to the climactic match. It can’t hold a candle to the classic final game in Victory (another prison/soccer film that starred Michael Caine and boasted “choreography” by the legendary Pele), but it’s a nice wind-up, even if the outcome is hardly a shocker. Take note that director Barry Skolnick’s done time with Ridley Scott’s ad agency, so he knows how to get that nicely shot, slickly edited rock-video vibe and, furthermore, has a longstanding penchant for catching football on film. While Mean Machine is ultimately little more than a side order to the Ritchie oeuvre, lacking the imaginative characters and whiplash story turns, it gets the ball in the net nonetheless. :

Mean Machine opens Friday, March 1