Another useless recycling of a brutal mid-'70s American sports movie.
Comment
03/03/02
Mean Machine (2002)
34
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:56
Fresh:19
Rotten:37
Average Rating:4.9/10
Consensus: Despite some genuine wit, this crowd pleaser is filled with too many cliches.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: In this remake of THE LONGEST YARD, Robert Aldrich's 1974 Burt Reynolds prison tale concerning inmates who organize themselves into a football team and compete against the guards, British director... [More]
Starring: Vinnie Jones, David Kelly, David Hemmings, Ralph Brown
Director: Barry Skolnick
Reviews for Mean Machine
A winning crowd-pleaser with more than enough juice to crossover with fans of all stripes, regardless of whether they even know anything about soccer or not.
03/03/02
You realize that not only is Vinnie Jones no Burt Reynolds ... but, as a source of structured cinematic mayhem anyway, soccer is no football.
03/01/02
The humor is hinged on the belief that knees in the crotch, elbows in the face and spit in the eye are inherently funny.
03/01/02
Worth a look as a curiosity.
03/01/02
No movement, no yuks, not much of anything.
03/01/02
The formula is familiar but enjoyable.
03/01/02
Top CriticEarnest yet curiously tepid and choppy recycling in which predictability is the only winner.
03/01/02
Jones helps breathe some life into the insubstantial plot, but even he is overwhelmed by predictability.
02/28/02
[It's] a prison soccer movie starring charismatic tough guy Vinnie Jones, but it had too much spitting for me to enjoy.
02/28/02
The only thing that could possibly make them less interesting than they already are is for them to get full montied into a scrappy, jovial team.
02/28/02
Circumscribed on one side by its American precursor and on the other by the Ritchie style that Skolnick slavishly imitates.
02/27/02
... a polished and relatively sincere piece of escapism.
02/26/02
Boasts not a single moment that's either fresh or credible; it's just a rehash of material that's been done to death several times before.
02/23/02
The most needless remake since Rollerball.
02/23/02
Mean Machine's tale of a disgraced soccer star who takes charge of a prison team benefits from solid pacing and acting.
02/23/02
Top Critic
This amiable picture talks tough, but it's all bluster -- in the end it's as sweet as Greenfingers ...
02/22/02
Lager-sedated Brit-movie fans who can tough it out to the finale might let Mean Machine get by with only a few penalties, but anybody else will be yanking out the red card long before halftime.
02/22/02
Top CriticMean Machine never finds a groove.
02/22/02
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