Lucky Break (2001 film)

Last updated

Lucky Break
Lucky Break quad.jpg
UK quad poster
Directed by Peter Cattaneo
Written by Ronan Bennett (screenplay)
Stephen Fry (lyrics)
Produced byPeter Cattaneo
Barnaby Thompson
Starring
Cinematography Alwin H. Küchler
Edited by David Gamble
Music by Anne Dudley
Production
companies
FilmFour Productions
Fragile Films
Senator Film
Distributed byFilmFour Distributors (United Kingdom)
Senator Filmverleih (Germany)
Paramount Pictures
Miramax Films (United States, Australia and New Zealand)
Release dates
  • 24 August 2001 (2001-08-24)(UK)
  • 8 November 2001 (2001-11-08)(Germany)
  • 19 April 2002 (2002-04-19)(U.S.)
Running time
107 minutes
CountriesUnited Kingdom
Germany
United States
LanguageEnglish

Lucky Break is a 2001 crime comedy film starring James Nesbitt and directed by Peter Cattaneo. [1] The film is a co-production between the United Kingdom, United States and Germany.

Contents

Plot

James 'Jimmy' Hands and Rudy 'Rud' Guscott are two friends who used to play "Cops & Robbers" when they were young. Now adults, they plan to actually rob a bank, but the robbery goes wrong and Hands flees the bank leaving Guscott trapped behind the security shutters. Hands is caught and arrested not long later.

After being sentenced to do time in prison, Hands and Guscott make a daring escape plan as the prison is scheduled to put on a theatrical show of Nelson: The Musical. Hands and Guscott plan to use the show as cover their daring break-out attempt. During rehearsals, the inmates are unable to find a pianist for the show, until one inmate, Cliff Gumbell (Timothy Spall) volunteers and impresses them with his amazing piano skills. Hands is cast as Nelson (against his will) and Guscott is cast as Hardy, much to Guscott's dismay as his character kisses Nelson as he dies.

The escape plan proves difficult to proceed with, as one of the guards becomes very suspicious of Hands. Further complications arise when one of the more dangerous inmates threatens Hands to help him escape, as well as Hands warming to a prison employee named Annabel. During a prison visiting day, Gumbell is devastated to learn that his son is spending more time with his uncle, and that his wife is very disappointed being married to a criminal. Unable to live with the shame, Gumbell commits suicide in his cell.

The night of the show arrives and the escape plan is put into action. However, the dangerous inmate is tricked into going over the 30-foot prison wall and falls down the other side, where he is captured. Hands and Guscott are about to escape when Hands reveals his intentions to stay because of his feelings for Annabel. Guscott reluctantly lets Hands go and escapes with two other inmates, one of whom has a friend who arrives in a plane to help them escape.

Back in the prison, one of the guards resigns from his job over frustration of the inmates escaping and becomes a car park warden. Hands is later released from prison and starts a new life with Annabel.

Cast list

Production

Anne Dudley collaborated with Stephen Fry to write and produce songs for the send-up musical "Nelson".

Exterior prison scenes were filmed at Dartmoor Prison, Princetown. [2]

Reception

The film holds a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 44 reviews with the critics consensus: "Lucky Break fails to do anything new with The Full Monty formula". [3] On Metacritic, it holds a 48% rating based on 22 reviews, indicating "Mixed or average reviews". [4]

Dave Kehr of The New York Times said that "Mr. Cattaneo restricts himself to the smiling blandness that has become the stock in trade of British comedies made for export, turning in a film that is forced, familiar and thoroughly condescending". [5]

Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post wrote "Apart from the deja vu all over again, Lucky Break is no worse a film than Breaking Out , and [that film] was utterly charming". [6]

According to Derek Elley of Variety , the film is "[c]hained to the floor by a script that isn't particularly funny, direction that goes for realism rather than stylization and an almost complete lack of comic timing". [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joliet Correctional Center</span> Prison in Joliet, Illinois

Joliet Correctional Center was a prison in Joliet, Illinois, United States, from 1858 to 2002. It is featured in the motion picture The Blues Brothers as the prison from which Jake Blues is released at the beginning of the movie. It is also used for the exterior shots of the Illinois "state prison" in the James Cagney film White Heat, and the location for first season of Fox Network's Prison Break television show, and the movie Let's Go to Prison. In 2018, it opened for tours.

<i>Kaante</i> 2002 Indian film

Kaante is a 2002 Indian Hindi-language action-thriller film directed by Sanjay Gupta, written by Milap Zaveri, and starring an ensemble cast including Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Lucky Ali, Mahesh Manjrekar, Kumar Gaurav, Namrata Singh Gujral, Rati Agnihotri, Rohit Roy, Isha Koppikar and Malaika Arora. Set in Los Angeles, the film follows six Indian men who are detained without evidence by the police. Feeling wronged and vengeful, they team up to plot a bank heist that would leave the Los Angeles Police Department penniless. However, once things go out of hand, they start suspecting each other's identities, resulting in violence and chaos.

<i>Prison Break</i> American TV series

Prison Break is an American drama television series created by Paul Scheuring for Fox. The series revolves around two brothers, Lincoln Burrows and Michael Scofield ; Burrows has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, while Scofield devises an elaborate plan to help his brother escape prison and clear his name. Along with creator Paul Scheuring, the series is executive-produced by Matt Olmstead, Kevin Hooks, Marty Adelstein, Dawn Parouse, Neal H. Moritz, and Brett Ratner who directed the pilot episode. The series' theme music, composed by Ramin Djawadi, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2006. Prison Break is a joint production between Original Film, Adelstein/Parouse Productions, Dawn Olmstead Productions, Adelstein Productions, One Light Road Productions and 20th Century Fox Television, and is syndicated by 20th Television.

<i>Brute Force</i> (1947 film) 1947 film by Jules Dassin

Brute Force is a 1947 American crime film noir directed by Jules Dassin, from a screenplay by Richard Brooks with cinematography by William H. Daniels. It stars Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford and Yvonne De Carlo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Nesbitt</span> Northern Irish actor (born 1965)

William James Nesbitt is an actor from Northern Ireland. From 1987, Nesbitt spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical Up on the Roof to the political drama Paddywack (1994). He made his feature film debut playing talent agent Fintan O'Donnell in Hear My Song (1991). He got his breakthrough television role playing Adam Williams in the romantic comedy-drama series Cold Feet, which won him a British Comedy Award, a Television and Radio Industries Club Award, and a National Television Award.

<i>Black Tuesday</i> (film) 1954 film by Hugo Fregonese

Black Tuesday is a 1954 American crime drama film noir directed by Hugo Fregonese and starring Edward G. Robinson, Peter Graves and Jean Parker. The supporting cast features Milburn Stone, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly and Russell Johnson.

<i>Reindeer Games</i> 2000 American action crime thriller film

Reindeer Games is a 2000 American action thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer in his final feature directorial outing before his 2002 death. It stars Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, Charlize Theron, Dennis Farina, James Frain, Donal Logue, Danny Trejo, and Clarence Williams III. The film revolves around ex-convict Rudy Duncan, who is dragged into a situation against his will: he must help a group of thieves rob a casino in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, or he will be killed.

<i>The Hole</i> (1960 film) 1960 French film by Jacques Becker

The Hole is a 1960 French crime film directed by Jacques Becker. It is an adaptation of José Giovanni's 1957 book The Break. It was called The Night Watch when first released in the United States, but is released under its French title today. The film is based on a true event concerning five prison inmates in La Santé Prison in France in 1947. Becker, who died just weeks after shooting had wrapped, cast mostly non-actors for the main roles, including one man who was actually involved in the 1947 escape attempt, and who introduces the film. It was entered into the 1960 Cannes Film Festival.

<i>Tarzan Escapes</i> 1936 film by William A. Wellman, George B. Seitz, John Farrow, Richard Thorpe

Tarzan Escapes is a 1936 Tarzan film based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was the third in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Tarzan series to feature Johnny Weissmuller as the "King of the Apes". Previous films were Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934), with Jane's bikini-like attire and the famous skinny-dipping sequence. Weissmuller and O'Sullivan starred together in three more Tarzan films, Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939), Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941) and Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942).

Lucky Stiff is a musical farce. It was the first collaboration for the team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (music). The show is based on the 1983 novel The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo by Michael Butterworth. It was created and performed at Playwrights Horizons off-Broadway in 1988, and won the Richard Rodgers Award for that year. The musical was seen in London's West End in 1997 but has not had a Broadway production. A film version had a limited release in theatres in 2015 but received mostly negative reviews.

<i>Waking Ned</i> 1998 film by Kirk Jones

Waking Ned is a 1998 comedy film written and directed by Kirk Jones and starring Ian Bannen, David Kelly, and Fionnula Flanagan. Kelly was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role as Michael O'Sullivan. The story is set in Ireland but was filmed on the nearby Isle of Man.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riots, Drills and the Devil</span> 6th and 7th episodes of the 1st season of Prison Break

"Riots, Drills and the Devil" is the sixth and seventh episode of the first season of the television series Prison Break. A two-part episode, the first part constitutes the sixth episode of the series and the second part constitutes the seventh. They were aired separately in the United States on September 26, 2005, and October 3, 2005, consecutively. The first part of "Riots, Drills and the Devil" was written by Nick Santora and directed by Robert Mandel with the second part being written by Karyn Usher and directed by Vern Gillum.

<i>Lock Up</i> (1989 film) 1989 film by John Flynn

Lock Up is a 1989 American prison action film directed by John Flynn, and starring Sylvester Stallone, Donald Sutherland, John Amos and Tom Sizemore. It was released in the United States on August 4, 1989.

<i>Caged Fury</i> (1989 film) 1990 film

Caged Fury is a 1990 women-in-prison film about a group of prisoners who decide to escape from an all-female prison. The film was directed by Bill Milling, and stars Erik Estrada, Roxanna Michaels, Richard Barathy and James Hong.

<i>I Love You Phillip Morris</i> 2009 film by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra

I Love You Phillip Morris is a 2009 black comedy film based on a 1980s and 1990s real-life story of con artist, impostor and multiple prison escapee Steven Jay Russell, as played by Jim Carrey. While incarcerated, Russell falls in love with his fellow inmate, Phillip Morris. After Morris is released from prison, Russell escapes from prison four times to be reunited with Morris. The film was adapted from the 2003 book I Love You Phillip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, and Prison Breaks by Steve McVicker. The film is the directorial debut of John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. It grossed $20 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics. For their writing, Requa and Ficarra received a nomination for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It is an international co-production of France and the United States.

<i>Escape Plan</i> (film) 2013 American prison action thriller film by Mikael Håfström

Escape Plan is a 2013 American prison action thriller film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, and co-starring Jim Caviezel, 50 Cent, Vinnie Jones, Vincent D'Onofrio and Amy Ryan. It was directed by Swedish filmmaker Mikael Håfström, and written by Miles Chapman and Jason Keller. The first film to pair up Stallone and Schwarzenegger as co-leads, it follows Stallone's character Ray Breslin, a lawyer turned prison security tester who is incarcerated in the world's most secret and secure prison, and recruits fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer, portrayed by Schwarzenegger, to stage a breakout. The film is the first installment of the Escape Plan film series.

Barnaby David Waterhouse Thompson is a British film director and producer. He is best known for producing Wayne's World, Spice World, Kevin & Perry Go Large and An Ideal Husband, as well as co-directing the St Trinians films. He founded Fragile Films and ran the iconic Ealing Studios for fourteen years.

<i>SPL II: A Time for Consequences</i> 2015 Hong Kong film

SPL II: A Time for Consequences is a 2015 Hong Kong-Chinese martial arts action film directed by Cheang Pou-soi and produced by Wilson Yip and Paco Wong. The film starred Tony Jaa, Wu Jing, Simon Yam and Zhang Jin, with Louis Koo making a special appearance. The film was released on 18 June 2015 in both 3D and non-3D formats.

<i>Escape Plan 2: Hades</i> 2018 film by Steven C. Miller

Escape Plan 2: Hades is a 2018 American direct-to-video prison action thriller film directed by Steven C. Miller. It is the sequel to the 2013 film Escape Plan, and the second installment in the Escape Plan film series. It stars Sylvester Stallone and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson reprising their roles from the first film, with Dave Bautista, Huang Xiaoming, Jaime King, Jesse Metcalfe, Titus Welliver, and Wes Chatham joining the cast. Escape Plan 2: Hades was released straight-to-DVD in the United States but received theatrical releases in such countries as Russia on June 28, 2018, and in China on June 29, 2018. The film received negative reviews from critics; it grossed $17.6 million in some theaters and $4.2 million in domestic home market against a production budget of $20 million.

References

  1. Smith, Neil (23 August 2001). "BBC - Films - review - Lucky Break". BBC . Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  2. "Prison to host film premiere. - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
  3. "Lucky Break". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media . Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  4. "Lucky Break". Metacritic . Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  5. Kehr, Dave (5 April 2002). "Film Review; Lucky Break". The New York Times . Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  6. O'Sullivan, Michael (18 April 2002). "Lucky Break". The Washington Post .
  7. Elley, Derek (14 August 2001). "Lucky Break". Variety .