Mean Machine is a 2001 British comedy-drama film directed by Barry Skolnick. It stars former footballer Vinnie Jones. The film is an adaptation of the 1974 American film The Longest Yard, featuring association football rather than American football. It also reunites most of the cast who have starred in the Guy Ritchie blockbusters Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.
Danny "The Mean Machine" Meehan (Vinnie Jones), a former captain of the English national football team who was banned from football for life for fixing a match between England and Germany (the England Football Team's greatest European rivals), is sentenced to three years in Longmarsh prison for assaulting two police officers after a lengthy drinking session and driving wildly to a local bar.
Once inside, he is promptly beaten by the prison guards for misbehaving, and is subsequently approached by the prison governor. The governor offers Meehan a job as coach of the prison wardens' football team; not wanting to make enemies with the other prisoners, Meehan declines, and instead offers to train a team consisting of other inmates, who will take on the wardens in a practice match. Meehan then recruits the resident contraband dealer, Massive, as his right-hand man, and receives advice from an elderly convict, Doc, who teaches Meehan prison lore. Meehan wins the respect of the other inmates after he attacks an officer, Mr. Ratchett, who is attacking Massive, and is then occupied with the task of training up his team of cons, including a maximum-security con named Monk (Jason Statham). Meanwhile, the governor of the prison gets himself into trouble with "Barry the Bookie," an unlicensed bookie who was recommended to him by Sykes, the resident prison boss, and decides to try and make back the money he owes by betting on the prison guards' team. Doc is killed when Nitro, a maverick inmate and bomb expert, plants a bomb in Meehan's locker.
The match commences shortly after Doc's death. At half time, the inmates' team, Mean Machine is winning 1-0, and things are going well until the governor, fearing what will happen if he loses a second bet, attempts to blackmail Meehan into throwing the match. At first he puts his own interests before that of the team's, playing quite badly but as the final moments of the game tick down, he redeems himself, and uses a square-ball to fellow inmate 'Billy the Limpet' (Danny Dyer) to win the game for the cons. Afterward, the Captain of the Guards, Mr. Burton, refuses to co-operate with the governor's attempts to get revenge on Danny, instead congratulating him on the match. The governor's vehicle explodes, and Sykes informs him that he, and Barry the Bookie, will retaliate if he tries anything.
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