Few pros among the cons

The campaign to convince us that Vinnie Jones is a movie star continues. Unfortunately, in his new film - his first as a leading man - he fails to convince even as a former England footballer.

This is a remake of the 1974 hit by Robert Aldrich, which had Burt Reynolds leading his fellow prisoners in an American Football match against their guards.

The original had some semblance of an antiauthoritarian political message - warden Eddie Albert was meant to represent President Richard Nixon - but the new version doesn't bother with such subtleties.

It stars most of Britain's most criminal-looking actors, and part of the problem is that many of them played near-identical parts in other prison movies of the year, such as Lucky Break and Greenfingers.

Half the time, it's unclear whether director Barry Skolnick intends this to be comedy or not. Much of the acting is more laughable than funny, and a crass, clichÈ-riddled script gives the actors little alternative but to overact in order to alleviate the boredom.

The film glorifies brutality in a way that is particularly repellent in the light of recent events on and off the football field.

Sally Phillips, a talented comic actress, has the dubious privilege of copulating with Vinnie in the most risibly gratuitous and demeaning sex scene in a British movie for many a year.

The film's worst sin, however, which it shares with quite a few other UK releases this year, is that it treats its audience as vicious morons.

Mean Machine
Cert: cert15