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Trivia: At the end of the movie the match commentators give the following speech: "Guards of Pentonville, guards of Wandsworth, Walton nick in Liverpool, policemen of Britain, traffic wardens and parole officers, wheel clampers, your boys have taken a hell of a beating today!
We are the best in the world! We have beaten England 2-1 at football! England, home of giants: Looooord Nelson, Looooord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Atlee, Henry Cooper, Lady Diana. We have beaten them all, we have beaten them all!
Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating! However, despite the loss, England continued on to qualify for the World Cup finals, while Norway did not.
Goofs: Continuity: When 'Nitro' is bundled into the back of a prison van, he knocks a guard's hat off. As the prison van doors are slammed shut, the guard's hat is still firmly on his head.
Mean Machine" was a crisp, "thud"-packed film that didn't fight with clichés, but instead gave us an action-comedy that only the British can conquer. While most will complain that this film doesn't do justice to the original, I must ask if Sandler's did either? The Longest Yard" wasn't a groundbreaking piece of cinema, and to see a British team remake the film, it is almost like a smile on our American faces. How often does that happen? So, without seeing much of the other two films, I went into "Mean Machine" with a clean slate, and enjoyed every moment of it. This was a fresh film, commercial in every since of the word, but fresh for what we decided to remake and slaughter.
With this film I thought I would watch and return, without giving it a second thought. I thought it would be another cliché moment of the underdogs beating out at the last moment without anyone skipping a beat and winning the female lead at the end. We have all seen these before, and it is the cliché ride that most sports films seem to fall. While "Mean Machine" was similar in nature, what lead to those final moments was really what transformed this film to above average. Vinnie Jones is tolerable. Actually, he is better in this film and shows more range with "Mean Machine" than I have seen him grapple in years. Sure, he was fun in the Guy Ritchie films, but it was fun to see him play the lead this time, while Jason Statham played the muscle. I loved, and in fact love his body of work, David Kelly. He was phenomenal as the older mentor in this film. What made "Mean Machine" stand out was the cast, the trouble I had with Sandler's film was that everyone was fighting to get the best joke in, everyone wanted to be in a scene with Sandler or Rock, but in this one, everyone had their own voice and logic. There were actual characters in this film, ones that stood beyond themselves and created the world we were viewing. With any sports film, there is that inconsistency that could transform the film into a very flat picture. That was never the case here.
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