- Actors: Ron Cook, Frank Harper, James Nesbitt, Olivia Williams, Timothy Spall
- Directors: Peter Cattaneo
- Writers: Ronan Bennett, Stephen Fry
- Producers: Barnaby Thompson, Elinor Day, Hanno Huth, Lesley Stewart, Paul Webster
- Format: NTSC
- Number of tapes: 1
- MPAA Rating:
- Studio: Paramount
- VHS Release Date: April 1 2004
- Run Time: 108 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00006G8NH
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #18,333 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
Peter Cattaneo's Lucky Break is a likable comedy that suffered by being compared with his earlier hit The Full Monty, but is attractive enough in its own right. Charming, incompetent bank robber Jimmy Hands (James Nesbitt), five years into a 12-year sentence, puts together an escape plan that exploits the desire of the stage-struck prison governor (Christopher Plummer) to see his musical about the life of Nelson performed. The plan gets ever more complicated as he finds himself wanting to wreck the career of a bullying prison officer, trying to outwit an unpleasant thug who wants to supplant his original accomplices, and weighing the idea of escape at all against his growing relationship with anger-management trainer Annabel (Olivia Williams).
This is an intelligent caper film with some underlying serious tones. Jimmy slowly comes to realize that crime involves mixing with some unpleasant people. The backstage musical stuff--with its wonderfully fatuous ex-Cambridge director and a score just the right side of dreadful--is hilarious, and the plot's convoluted central scam is efficient as it plays out. If there is an overall failure, it comes from the clash between the film's farcical elements and the bittersweet quality of its central relationship, as well as Timothy Spall's portrayal of the victimized Cliff. --Roz Kaveney
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Under-rated entertainment.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lucky Break (VHS Tape)
We never heard of this movie, but the cover looked interesting at the video rental store. We were not disappointed. It was funny and entertaining throughout. Being big fans of community theatre, it reminded us of "Waiting for Guffman," another movie we can recommend that didn't get enough attention.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lots to like,
This review is from: Lucky Break (Widescreen) (DVD)
I watched this because I watch anything Timothy Spall does. He has a smaller part, but is brilliant, again. Yet everyone else does a fine job a well. Frank harper demonstrates he can play the gamut, as a vicious thug whose look stops clocks. Olivia Williams gradually and reluctantly falls in love, and does so beleivably and tenderly. There are no caricatures in here, none of the cartoons that people American prison stories. Losers, bad people, and crooks are in prison, and most belong there. But they can change, can grow and can do better. Warm, funny, understated, and clever. Nice job.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lots to like,
By Jay Charles - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lucky Break (Widescreen) (DVD)
I watched this because I watch anything Timothy Spall does. He has a smaller part, but is brilliant, again. Yet everyone else does a fine job a well. Frank harper demonstrates he can play the gamut, as a vicious thug whose look stops clocks. Olivia Williams gradually and reluctantly falls in love, and does so beleivably and tenderly. There are no caricatures in here, none of the cartoons that people American prison stories. Losers, bad people, and crooks are in prison, and most belong there. But they can change, can grow and can do better. Warm, funny, understated, and clever. Nice job. 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly awful,
By Trevor Willsmer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Lucky Break (Widescreen) (DVD)
After passing on The Full Monty in favour of Brassed Off, the now all-but defunct Film Four were quick to throw money at Peter Cattaneo's next comedy and confidently launched a huge marketing campaign for Lucky Break secure in the knowledge that they had the big local hit of the year. Subsequent excuses for the film's disastrous performance at the box-office varied from good weather putting people off going to the cinema to the revelation that the screenwriter had done time for IRA offences (subsequently overturned, but still about as endearing to the British public as Al Qaeda are to Americans). For some reason no-one mentioned the fact that it's not any good. At all.A grab-bag of second-hand ideas from Two-Way Stretch, The Tall Guy and others, it's a laugh-free zone that goes out of its way to avoid surprises while failing to ever find its own tone, nodding to half-baked attempts realism and wildly underdeveloped comedy without ever committing to either. Even the tried-and-trusted routines don't work here: Bill Nighy is just irritating as he tries to splutter some life into unfunny dialogue while Timothy Spall does his dishevelled hamster shtick yet again, while the amateur musical used as a backdrop for the planned prison break seems simply amateurish and unfunny. Quite dreadful. 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Slow but Sweet Understated Comedy,
By Liz W. "villagebookreview" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Lucky Break (Widescreen) (DVD)
Repeat-offender Jimmy (James Nesbitt) finds himself doing time after a botched bank job. When the prison warden (Christopher Plummer), an aspiring playwright, proposes that the prison put on a production of his musical, Jimmy and his fellow inmates plan to use the performance as a diversion while they make a get away. Things get complicated, however, when Jimmy falls for the prison's psychologist, Annabel (Olivia Williams). This entertaining black comedy carries some good acting and a marvelously understated sense of humor. The warden's musical, based on the swashbuckling life of Viscount Horatio Nelson, is about as lavish as an elementary school production, and wonderfully dreadful to boot. Although a bit slow at times, patient viewers will find themselves rewarded.
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