Lucky Break - Rein oder raus

Please stop comparing this film to The Full Monty. The comparison is irrelevant. It is not, and never intends to be, a sequel to Monty.

Please do have a look at this film as it is, actually, very good, with some well observed and interesting performances. Some reviews on here give the impression the film is unfunny. Not so. It works well as a light comedy/romance.

Worth seeing too as an example of good British cinema. I wonder what Hollywood would have done with the script..? (On second thought... Let's not go there).

Well done (again) Film Four.

Caught this one on TV a while back and I'm glad I didn't bother to see it in theatrical release.

Though the film has an excellent cast and is as well-made as a basic comedy can be, there is one simple matter that the screenwriter Ronan Bennett seems to have overlooked - there is NO comedy, OK maybe there are one or two laughs here, but that's all.

Apparently based on a book by the superb Stephen Fry, one wonders why the producers didn't approach Mr. Fry to write the screenplay, after all his track record speaks for itself - the man knows how to make people laugh!

The film sold itself as being 'From the Director of The Full Monty' well, I don't know what happened here, but Peter Cattaneo didn't bring any of the skills he seemed to display in TFM.

Don't bother with this one at all, a total waste of time.

The kind of film that does get much of a reaction from you. Some Ok laughs, some ,mildly touching moment and one very sad moment that worked so well thanks to Tim Spall's excellent performance. The acting was very good,the plot was fine, but the script lacked a little sparkle.

I don't know, maybe I'm the only person in the world who didn't enjoy The Full Monty. Perhaps there's something wrong with me, but I hated it. So when I was dragged into the cinema to see this follow-up by the same director, I went kicking and screaming. True, I knew absolutely nothing about the film, had not seen a review and sure, it starred the always funny James "Cold Feet" Nesbitt and the delectable Olivia "Rushmore" Williams, but I was determined to loathe every agonising moment.

A few minutes in, a funny things started to happen. Something odd was happening in my throat and in my chest. That sensation in my chest... that strange feeling... What was it? No, I wasn't bringing up bile. It wasn't pain; It was... it was... No, it couldn't be. It was laughter! Yes, I was laughing. The film was funny and entertaining and charming and the corny, feel good ending left me with a warn glow.

Eewwww...

It was probably made to capitalize on the well-deserved success of the "Full Monty" :both films have a lot in common ;proles / prisoners setting a show up.

The major drawback is Christopher Plummer's part :it's really underwritten and the scenarists obviously favored James Nesbitt's role.Too bad for the "show " sequences are the best in the whole film but we do not laugh enough.Lord Nelson's and "that" Lady Hamilton's song is deliciously stupid and provides a great moment of fun.The inmates ironically singing "we're going home" is a hilarious scene too.

But it seems that the director could not make up his mind :he hesitates between comedy and drama:the sadistic warden is a cliché ,as old as the hills in what is finally a prison movie.

Watchable but the screenplay was not fully exploited.