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ALIVE AND STILL
Here’s a quick quiz: which is the odd one out in boxing, baseball, American football and soccer? If you need a clue, try thinking of clas- sic movies set amid the world of each sport. Of those, only ‘the beautiful game’ has been reduced to something plodding and lifeless in the hands of most filmmakers.
That may be about to change with The Mean Machine, a film inspired by the 1974 Robert Aldrich classic, starring Burt Reynolds, that combined comedy and drama, prison and gridiron, to such good effect.
Produced by Ska Films’ Matthew Vaughn, and directed by feature first-timer Barry Skolnick, the film translates the setting from the US to the UK, and the sport from American football to real football.
With Vinnie Jones in the lead, as an England internation- al whose life of privilege and comfort comes crashing down after he is sent to prison, the story charts his efforts to win back his self respect and sur- vive in that harsh environment.
Eventually things boil up to a football match between the guards and the cons, with Danny (Jones) now determined to do something right and lead his new team mates to a famous victory. But it won’t, as they say, be easy.
Neither will it be easy to see something akin to a real match, if past football movies are anything to go by. Escape
To Victory, Yesterday’s Hero, When Saturday Comes, The Match... none have covered themselves in glory.
“Casting was very important in that respect,” says Skolnick. “Every actor that came in was given an inten- sive trial by our football consultant [former Wimbledon player, now Brentford assistant manager] Wally Downes. That shocked a lot of actors, because agents obviously would say
‘he’s fantastic, he used to play for Brighton you know,’ when they’d never played in their life before.
“But it was important for me that I didn’t actually see them as actors before I saw whether or not they could
Vinnie Jones gets all emotional on the set of The Mean Machine
Photos main: Vinnie Jones as Danny; the team; the prison yard; the guard dogs
EXPOSURE • 14 & 15
in production