Mean Machine (film)
| Mean Machine | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Barry Skolnick |
| Produced by |
Matthew Vaughn Guy Ritchie (executive) |
| Screenplay by | Tracy Keenan Wynn Charlie Fletcher Chris Baker Andrew Day |
| Story by | Albert S. Ruddy |
| Starring |
Vinnie Jones David Kelly David Hemmings Ralph Brown Jason Flemyng Danny Dyer Jason Statham |
| Music by | John Murphy |
| Cinematography | Alex Barber |
| Edited by | Eddie Hamilton Dayn Williams |
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Production
company |
SKA Films
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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99 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $7,310,206 |
Mean Machine is a 2001 British comedy-drama film directed by Barry Skolnick. It stars former footballer Vinnie Jones. The film is an adaptation of the 1974 American film The Longest Yard, featuring association football rather than American football. It also reunites most of the cast who have starred in the Guy Ritchie blockbusters and Snatch.
Danny "The Mean Machine" Meehan (Vinnie Jones), a former captain of the England national football team who was banned from football for life for fixing a match between England and Germany (the England Football Team's greatest European rivals), is sentenced to three years in Longmarsh prison for assaulting two police officers after a long drinking session and driving recklessly to a local bar.
Once inside, he is immediately beaten up by the prison guards for misbehaving, and is subsequently approached by the prison governor. The governor offers Meehan a job as coach of the prison wardens' football team; not wanting to make enemies with the other prisoners, Meehan declines, and instead offers to train a team consisting of other inmates, who will take on the wardens in a practice match. Meehan then recruits the resident contraband dealer, Massive, as his right-hand man, and receives advice from an elderly convict, Doc, who teaches Meehan prison lore and warns Meehan to avoid making mistakes by revealing he was in prison for killing an enemy as well as the enemy's wife and child with a grenade.
Meehan wins the respect of the other inmates after he attacks an officer, Mr. Ratchett, who is severely beating Massive, and is then occupied with the task of training up his team of cons, including a maximum-security con named Monk (Jason Statham). Meanwhile, the governor of the prison gets himself into trouble with "Barry the Bookie," an unlicensed bookie who was recommended to him by Sykes, the resident prison boss, and decides to try to make back the money he owes by betting on the prison guards' team. Doc is killed when Nitro, an unstable inmate and bomb expert, plants a bomb in Meehan's locker at the encouragement of Mr. Ratchett. Nitro is subsequently sent to another facility, but not to the minimum-security hospital he was promised - he is sent to an alternate facility where Ratchett reveals he will be heavily sedated all the time.
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