Lucky Break

Director Peter Cattaneo's first film, "The Full Monty," told a tale of a group of men, depressed and downtrodden due to the indifferent cruelty of the capitalist economic system, who symbolically liberated themselves by putting on a money-raising strip show. Cattaneo's second film, "Lucky Break," tells the tale of a group of men, depressed and downtrodden due to the indifferent cruelty of Her Majesty's Prison at Long Rudford, who literally liberate themselves by putting on a morale-boosting musical which happens to facilitate a breakout.

It's forgivable that Cattaneo seems to want to duplicate the artistic and financial success that "The Full Monty" achieved, and it's not exactly a tale that can't be told twice. Unfortunately, the similiarities between the two films begin and end with the plot. While "The Full Monty" was funny, charming and affecting, "Lucky Break" spends way too much of its time doing things that aren't funny, charming or affecting at all.

The main schematic difference between the two films, of course, is that "The Full Monty"'s protagonists had all been beaten down by forces outside of their control, and were helpless and hopeless to stop them. "Lucky Break"'s protagonists, on the other hand, committ illegal acts because (the film informs us) they like to, and they are sick and tired of dealing with the consequences. In fact, main character Jimmy Hands (James Nesbitt) and Rudy (Lennie James) never express any remorse about anything other than getting caught.

This makes sympathy for them virtually inaccessible, although Cattaneo and screenwriter Ronan Bennett try to access it anyway with the improbably guiltless, martyrdom-ready prisoner Cliff Gumball. This prisoner exists exlcusively to make funny musical-theater jokes and suffer undeservedly until Jimmy gets fed up. He would be a lot more annoying than he is if he weren't so winningly embodied by Timothy Spall, but even so the intrusions of pathos for which his character provides an excuse are jarring and palpably unearned.

The same goes for the romantic subplot, which features Annabel Sweep (Olivia Williams), an anger management counselor who takes a reluctant shine to Jimmy. This subplot seems to have been imported from some other, much stupider movie, complete with tackily clichéd dialogue ("So you took this job to meet famous bank robbers?") and eminently predictable conclusion (gee, why did they bother to pay all that money for a woman to be in a prison film, anyway?). Williams does some heavy labor to make this watchable, but when this, the Cliff Gumball Story, and a completely new subplot involving a new heavy take over the third act, the film runs out of watchability.

Even before the third act, though, there just aren't enough laughs in this supposed comedy. Nesbitt is miscast, for one thing; he's supposed to be a crazy-plan generator, always eager to enlist everyone for harebrained schemes, but as an actor he's most comfortable slouching, saying nothing and staring aggressively. This makes for some funny moments, to be sure, but not nearly as many as if Nesbitt had been the sparkplug the script seems to demand. One truly wonders why Rudy has hung around for so long at all, particulary as Jones is so much more dynamic an actor than Nesbitt.

By far the funniest thing in this film is the musical, a dramatization of the life of naval blazer Lord Nelson supposedly written by the prison's governor Graham Mortimer (Christopher Plummer) but really with book and lyrics by Stephen Fry. Unfortunately, Bennett and Cattaneo are so busy making room for all the other plots that they hardly have time at all to let us watch hardened prisoners flouncing about in ridiculous costumes and singing horrible songs with lines like "He loved his country so much/He gave it the Nelson touch." Now that's funny. Too bad there isn't more of it.

As generally happens in English films, there are a number of directorial subtleties which are refreshing if you've been watching cinematographically illiterate American movies all day. There are a number of fine performances from supporting actors as well. But "Lucky Break" is so unfocussed and dilatory that none of the good stuff really registers. By the end, you'll be rooting for the prisoners to get away scot-free just so they won't have any chance to make another movie about them. That would be a "Lucky Break" for the audience.

Author's note: I actually saw this movie in September 2001, even though it came out in April 2002. When I saw "Ocean's Eleven" and Don Cheadle's Cockney bomber, I initially thought they had hired Lennie James, and Don Cheadle would be along later playing someone else. James would have been cheaper and could have delivered the same performance. But Lennie James didn't deliver any cool lines in "Traffic," either, so what are you going to do?

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