From director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty), this is a pretty good prison break-out comedy with an all-star cast. James 'Jimmy' Hands (James Nesbitt) is halfway through a 12-year sentence for an attempted armed robbery, and he gets a lucky break, he's transferred to a prison seemingly easier to escape from. He convinces Governor Graham Mortimer (The Sound of Music's Christopher Plummer) to stage a musical based on the life of Nelson in the old chapel, next to one outer wall. Rounding up volunteer actors and production members, including Cliff Gumbell (Timothy Spall), Roger 'Rog' Chamberlain (Bill Nighy) and ex-robbery partner Rudy 'Rud' Guscott (Snatch's Lennie James), and the leading lady played by new love interest Annabel Sweep (Olivia Williams), his plan seems to be going well. So, after the arrival of nasty inmate John Toombes (Frank Harper), and the death of Cliff, it comes to the night of the musical, and Jimmy plans his "break-out performance", along with a couple of the other players, but in the end, Jimmy decides to stay for Annabel, while the others get away with it, and Jimmy is released in the end anyway. Also starring Ron Cook as Mr. Perry the Guard, Julian Barratt as Paul Dean and Celia Imrie as Amy Chamberlin. The jokes are very light, but the performances are all good, and the story has its moments, it's certainly worth a go. Good!

This type of comedy seem to be the specialty of the Britain, where it is usually situated in some dilapidated environment with its main characters in some despaired situation. They eventually overcome whatever barriers that is set upon them by their own perseverance on what and desire to do what's right.Lucky Break is one of them, this time, in a prison setting. But with the environment given, interaction with other characters are limited, which leads to a lot of scenes that feels redundant.The prison scenario for the film is also pretty far fetched, with it almost being a school dorm as opposed to a secured environment. It seems that if it wasn't this way, most of the interactions between characters would not be able to take place.But the ending is what these films are all about, giving the characters who has been dragging themselves in the gutter some hope, which is what they need in their circumstance, and eventually, prevail.

The pace and style reminded me of the "Full Monty", but the story didn't seem quite as satisfying. A couple of "wanna be" bank robbers end up in an English prison, with a population of mostly decent people who are missing their lives outside of the prison. An opportunity comes along to stage a prison play, and a couple of the prisoners see an opportunity for an escape. The escape plot is complicated by a rather unlikely romance between one of the prisoners Jimmy (Nesbitt) and the only female that works in the prison, Annabell (Williams).Olivia Williams, and Christopher Plummer gave good performances, and the movie was more interesting when they were on the screen. A decent film, but not particularly memorable.

A lack of humour is the major problem with this movie. It never really makes you laugh. You will recognise early on that it is going to copy The Full Monty even if you had no idea of the connection before going in to see it. Additionally--as other commentators have accurately stated--it is unbelievable too often.The only man-woman relationship is contrived; a beautiful, smart girl falling for an con? Of course the writer would like us to suspend our belief and accept that when people are in love anything is possible, but like the Chris O'Donnell's cliff leap in Vertical Limit you simply cannot accept it. Why is it that writers/producers think that an audience will believe the unbelievable? Have the surveys behind the scenes shown that movie-goers are so desperate for escapism or have nothing better to do that the 'believability bar' can be set so low? Even if the movie were novel and well-acted--which it is not--if the writer develops the life of characters within the context of an improbable relationship then no matter how good the acting is or how well the sory is developed the effect will be diminished. There are some believable scenes, especially when Spall is on screen. His desperation to get out of prison following the meeting with his wife and son is quietly shown in his eyes and the soft words to his cell-mate, even if what he was going to do next was still fairly predictable. And Christopher Plummer! The sad professional slide he is currently on (Dracula 2000) makes me want to wither, or jump up and yell, "why are you wasting your talent here?". It could have been Don Knotts or Leslie Nielsen, almost anyone but Plummer. In other words, the producers needed 'a name' and Casting went along with it. I also had the feeling that the cute accents were used a vehicle to sell the movie. The mixture of Oxford English, non-Oxford English and Irish is not enough to charm me into suspending my belief if the jokes are few and far between. Like the movie's premise, I too was ready to get out as soon as possible. 3/10