Mean Machine Review
Derivative, brutal, pointless, cynical, and stupid, Mean Machine still manages to be fairly entertaining. It's a jazzed up remake of the equally brutal and entertaining, but slightly more complex Robert Aldrich film The Longest Yard. Aldrich, director of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Dirty Dozen, was an original, and The Longest Yard's bone-crunching machismo seemed more earned than it does in Mean Machine, where it sometimes comes off as posturing, not on the part of characters, but on the part of the actors and director. The Longest Yard was a cornerstone of Burt Reynolds' career, and his performance as Paul Crewe holds up as one of his best, because his pretty-boy looks and natural swaggering smarminess makes the other inmates' antagonism easy to understand. There's never really any doubt about Danny Meehan's character in Mean Machine, which gives Meehan a less dynamic arc than Crewe, and makes the film less interesting. Vinnie Jones, as Meehan, is a surprisingly charismatic lead, but unlike Reynolds, he's clearly a rough guy, and from the streets, so the other inmates' initial antagonism doesn't ring true. The film also relies a bit heavily on Guy Ritchie-style editing and camera trickery (it was produced by Ritchie's production company, Ska Films, and shares many cast members with Ritchie's first two films). Still, things move at a swift pace, and one virtue that Mean Machine shares with its predecessor is that they both get the sports stuff right. The long, dirty soccer match that ends the film is its highlight, even though the outcome is never much in doubt. Josh Ralske, Rovi
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