Mean Machine

Once a major football hero, but now famously degenerate after seeming to have thrown a crucial international match, Danny Meehan is arrested for drunk driving and assaulting an officer. He is sentenced to prison where he becomes involved in coaching a prisoner’s football team., Jailed former England international Danny Meehan is forced to recruit a team of cons to take on the guards at footie., Vinnie Jones plays a footballer banged up for throwing a crucial game. Inside, the football-loving warden (David Hemmings) sets him the task of coaching a team of prisoners to take on the all-conquering warders’ side., Former English-soccer tough guy turned actor Vinnie Jones (“Snatch”) stars in this often humorous and frequently violent comedy, which is based on “The Longest Yard.” Jones is Danny Meehan, a disgraced international soccer star who lands in jail, where he is forced by a corrupt prison official to lace up his boots for a winners-take-all match against the guards. David Kelly, Ralph Brown., Vinnie Jones plays a footballer banged up for throwing a crucial game. Inside, the football-loving warden (David Hemmings) sets him the task of coaching a team of prisoners to take on the all-conquering warders’ side. Can Jones form a disparate bunch of lags into a winning team? Barry Skolnik’s film, based on Robert Aldrich’s The Longest Yard, is fast, fun and furious with, of course, the climax a suitably bruising encounter., Vinnie Jones plays a footballer banged up for throwing a crucial game. Inside, the football-loving warden sets him the task of coaching a team of prisoners to take on the all-conquering warders side. Can Jones form a disparate bunch of lags into a winning team? Barry Skolnik’s film, based on the Aldrich’s The Longest Yard, is fast, fun and furious with, of course, the climax a suitably brusing encounter., Mean Machine is director Barry Skolnick’s British spin on the 1974 Burt Reynolds hit The Longest Yard. The film sticks closely to the story line of its predecessor. The main character is a former soccer star, Danny Meehan (former soccer star Vinnie Jones), and the convicts play soccer against the guards, not American football. Matthew Vaughn, who produced Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, also produced this film. After leading the cops on a drunken high-speed chase, and fighting with them, Danny, whose pro career ended when he threw a game, ends up in prison, where he finds a surprising amount of resentment among the other inmates. As a friendly old-timer, Doc (David Kelly) explains, “You had everything they ever dreamed of, and threw it all away.” Danny meets Sykes (John Forgeham), the gangster who basically runs the prison. The Governor (David Hemmings) (or warden) asks Danny to coach the guards’ soccer team. They already have a coach, head guard Burton (Ralph Brown), who warns Danny to turn the job down. Instead, Danny proposes he organize a prisoners’ team to give the guards a practice game. He gets help from Massive (Vas Blackwood), a small, amiable black man who describes his name as “ironic.” The psychotic, drooling Nitro (Stephen Walters) makes recruiting difficult by accusing Danny of being a snitch. Things turn around, however, when Danny rescues Massive from a beating by a racist guard. This wins the other prisoners over, and Monk (Jason Statham), a maniacally violent alleged cannibal, becomes the goalkeeper. After a few practices, the team is ready to play the well-trained guards in a brutally dirty match. Every actor had to pass a “soccer audition” before being cast in the film, and they all do their own playing in the match., Jailed soccer star Vinnie Jones leads a group of prison inmates in a match against the prison guards., Vinnie Jones plays a footballer banged up for throwing a crucial game. Inside, the football loving warden (David Hemmings) sets him the task of coaching a team of prisoners to take on the all-conquering warders side. Can Jones form a disparate bunch of lags into a winning team? Barry Skolnik’s film, based on the Aldrich’s The Longest Yard , is fast, fun and furious with, of course, the climax a match marginally more brutal than Arsenal v Man United (but without the pizzas).