Mean Machine

Barry Skolnick relocates Robert Aldrich's 1974 American-football classic The Longest Yard to a British prison and hands the field to Vinnie Jones, playing a disgraced former England captain serving time for assaulting a police officer. The warden wants the prisoners humiliated; the prisoners want dignity; Jones wants to remind everyone he could play. Ritchie-era British casting (Statham, Flemyng, Hemmings) gives it a dirty texture the original never had.

• Vinnie Jones starred and was a co-producer.
• British remake of Robert Aldrich's 1974 The Longest Yard.
• Produced by Guy Ritchie's Ska Films.
• Jason Statham plays a deranged goalkeeper, 'The Monk'.
• Filmed largely in a disused Victorian prison.

• We're going to give those screws a kicking they'll never forget.
• It's football, mate. Innit?
• I might be in here for assault. Out there, I'm a player.
• Win or lose, we're not the same men coming off that pitch.
• Up the cons!