New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
This is mostly well-constructed fluff, which is all it seems intended to be.
United Kingdom, Germany, United States · 2001
Rated PG-13 · 1h 47m
Director Peter Cattaneo
Starring James Nesbitt, Olivia Williams, Timothy Spall, Christopher Plummer
Genre Comedy, Crime
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
Half-way through his 12-year prison sentence for an incompetent armed robbery, Jimmy Hands gets a lucky break: he's transferred to a prison from which he can probably escape. He convinces the governor to stage a musical in an old chapel next to the prison's outer wall. He rounds up volunteer actors and puts his escape plan into production. Two other barriers, besides the wall, confront him: the arrival of a nasty inmate, John Toombes, who insists on joining the escape, and Jimmy's feelings of attraction for Anabel, a social worker who agrees to appear in the play. Opening night approaches: is this Jimmy's breakout performance?
New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
This is mostly well-constructed fluff, which is all it seems intended to be.
The New York Times by Dave Kehr
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.
Mike Leigh mainstay Timothy Spall deftly shades in the designated goner, fellow "Still Crazy" alum Bill Nighy is sweetly wispy as the capable fop, and anger-management counselor Olivia Williams trembles pleasantly as usual.
Neither the appealing cast nor the bouncing, ska-inflected soundtrack can keep the party going.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Every porridgy inmate in this instantly forgettable romp warbles in the prison's amateur musical, and one of them demonstrates a rather extreme devotion to the tomatoes he grows in the on-site greenhouse.
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
Apart from the deja vu all over again, Lucky Break is no worse a film than "Breaking Out," and "Breaking Out" was utterly charming.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
There is not much here that comes as a blinding plot revelation, but the movie has a raffish charm and good-hearted characters, and like "The Full Monty" it makes good use of the desperation beneath the comedy.
Overall, it's good, not great.
The big musical setpiece, rife with possibilities for humor and uplift, needed to be funnier and more energetic than the half-hearted lyrics and choreography bother to muster.
Perfectly inoffensive and harmless, but it's also drab and inert.
An assassin takes a young orphan girl under his wing and helps her get revenge.
In space no one can hear you scream.
A man, thoroughly dissatisfied with his life, finds new meaning when he forms a fight club with soap salesman Tyler Durden.
Con artist Roger "Verbal" Kint describes his involvement in organized crime to his interrogators, as they try to figure out crime boss Keyser Söze's identity.
Close friends Jules and Jim both fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.
Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan ranks among his most acclaimed films.
If you don't know his story you don't know the whole story.
A failed stand-up comedian is driven insane, turning to a life of crime in chaos in Gotham City.