Film Review: Mean Machine (2001)
Football (or soccer) is the most popular sport in the world, but you couldn’t tell based on the number of films dealing with it. It would be be easy to to blame undue influence of Hollywood on this, but the real reason could be found in the features of the sport itself that make it difficult to bring excitement and drama of real time game to big screen. One of the very few films that got football right is Mean Machine, 2001 British black sports comedy directed by Barry Skolnick.
The film is a remake of The Longest Yard, 1974 Hollywood film by Robert Aldrich, which dealt with American football. The main character of Mean Machine, played by Vinnie Jones, is Danny Meehan, footballer who used to be one the captain of England national team and country’s biggest star before being caught fixing the match with Germany. Now he is banned from playing the game and hated by most of his countrymen, but things get even worse after he gets drunk, attacks policemen and, as a result, receives three years of prison. He is about serve his sentence in Longmarsh, prison whose warden Sykes (played by David Hemmings) wants to use Meehan’s talent to train semi-professional football team made of prison guards. Warden’s subordinate Burton (played by Ralph Brown), just like the rest of the guards, doesn’t want to be put under authority of a prisoner. After many complications Meehan finds better way to make his life easier behind bars – he will train team of prisoners for the exhibition match, intended to test guards’ footballing skills. Although this plan encounters many difficulties, Meehan gradually wins fellow inmates’ trust and turns them into real footballers, motivated with desire to get even with guards for all the beatings and humiliations they had to suffer. On the eve of the match, however, it turns out that Sykes, who happens to be a gambling addict and owes many to some dangerous people, has ulterior motives for hosting the match and is ready to ask Meehan to deliver specific result.
Mean Machine represents one of the rare examples of remake being better than the original. With the action moved to Britain and produced by Guy Ritchie, author of popular black comedies, the film at first looks as nothing more than a shameless copy of Aldrich’s work. On the other hand, screenwriting team have made certain modification to the original script by Tracy Keenan Wynn, most notably by discarding references to sorry state of 1970s American politics. That was good move, allowing audience to focus on more universal themes and the plot. The best decision was casting of Vinnie Jones, former footballer whose rough style of playing and personality built around it had made career switch easier, turning him into dependable and charismatic actor specialised for playing tough and intimidating characters. Another good decision was hiring Barry Sklonick, music video specialist, to direct the film. His style of direction made Mean Machine almost half hours shorter than the original. His effort was helped by a great team of British character actors who made characters more memorable than thiose in 1974 film. The biggest achievements of the film are still the final football match – Skolnick managed to make it unusually attractive, exciting and truly dramatic. In the end, just like with the Beautiful Game, viewers will have no incentive to think about the realism of what they have seen or about some important sociological and political issues explored in Mean Machine, but they will know that they had a really good time.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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