This pound of piss sees Vinnie Jones playing fictitious footballing legend Danny Meehan as he attempts to triumph over the adversity of being a once beloved, now despised, celebrity in a supposedly realistic prison environment. As this festering turd of a narrative drags it's way towards conclusion like a tapeworm-ridden dog towing itself across a new carpet, we see Vinnie Jones tackle the gruesome side of prison as he fights some twat, receives solitary confinement for saving a fellow prisoner from the onslaught of racial discord, witnesses Omid Djalili portray a prat-falling Iranian, nearly gets penetrated in the bathroom by Scotsman's friend (of course, I mean his knife) and bang the fit one from Smack The Pony (Sally Philips), who, in this role, looks like she fell out of the whore tree and banged every guy on the way down.
However the film does possess some good points, such as the stereotypical yet wonderfully appropriate and even hair-raising commentary of the wardens vs. cons match provided by the two bobs (Jake Abraham and Jason Flemyng), or the nostalgia-inducing scene in which we see the great John Forgeham, playing Charlie Sikes, put 'the frighteners' on the shit-bag governor, played by David Hemming, vaguely reminiscent of scenes from Performance, or even Minder (both of which feature the superb Anthony Valentine).
Despite the film's positives, it is a bad film and I love it with every fibre of my being. I love the bad acting, such as when Rocky Marshall acts as referee to an organised fight between prisoners where he essentially caterwauls until red in the face. I love the fact that Vas Blackwood (Lennox Gilbey from Only Fools And Horses, episode: The Longest Night) is in the film as well as the exquisite David Kelly (you know, O'Riley from Fawlty Towers). I love the fact that Ralph Brown is in the film as the 'noble bobby' because all I can ever picture him saying is his most memorable line of dialogue from Wayne's World, "we had to beat them to death with their own shoes" (I know he is a prison warden put the point still stands).
Most of all, I adore this film because it can make me feel happy, sad and every emotion in between, which is what any good film should be able to do and it does all of this by celebrating the actors of British Film and Television, therefore making Mean Machine a damn good film.
P.S. The Strokes new album is scheduled for release this year.
Here here good sir. Here here.
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