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Vinnie is Danny Meehan, a former England soccer captain who finds himself in prison on charges of drunken assault after falling from grace in a match-fixing scandal. When in prison Meehan engages in a little macho posturing, a lot of grimmacing at people who call themselves fans, and some boring training in preparation for the big game.

Which leads to the inevitable questions:

* Why can a prison full of prisoners not field a competent team, yet the prison guards, who number far less than the prisoners, are all awesome? Who can say.

* Why is the even game taking place? Because the warden thinks he can make money betting on it.

* Why should we care? We don't.

Short of a few jokes here and there that do extract a chuckle, for the most part this film is full of tired cliches, plotholes that you would laugh at if you cared about the plot in any way, characters and performances that stink up the joint, and the occasional Guy Ritchie inspired action-sequence featuring speeded up cameras, bizarro angles, overuse of stop-frames and... oh, I can't be bothered.

Vinnie Jones has all the personality of a limp rag and to base an entire film around him is just a ridiculous waste of resources. As a sub-plot character Jones can just about get by on his limited skills, but as a leading man there are few worse. Which means he suits this tired film down to the ground. It's nice to know that the British can be as stupid as those in Hollywood, but here's hoping they hide the fact a little better in the future.

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=5770&reviewer=1
originally posted: 09/19/02 08:50:25
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