Lucky Break on DVD

From the director of “The Full Monty” comes a highly amusing and escapist tale.

Jimmy Hands (James Nesbitt) is a small time hood with dreams of bigger things - but he doesn’t really have the wherewithal to make them happen. So when he and his partner (Lennie James) try to rob a bank their own ineptness leads to their arrest and conviction.

Flash forward a few years and they’re unhappily incarcerated in the pen, serving twelve years. But an opportunity for relief presents itself when the prison Governor (Christopher Plummer) turns out to be an amateur playwright who has written a musical based on the life of British naval hero Admiral Nelson and wants the inmates to stage it for him.

Jimmy figures that mounting the production will require all sorts of tools that can be used for other assorted and more ‘productive’ purposes and that the production itself will offer opportunity for escape - so he counts himself in and enlists assorted other inmate characters to get on board as well.

What follows is a very funny series of situations as these hardened criminals sing and dance (much to their own surprise), a brutal guard gets his well-deserved comeuppance, Jimmy and the prison psychologist (Olivia Williams) find love, and the Governor gets his awful play produced.

This description doesn’t do the movie justice of course. It’s one of those small and gentle British comedies that, like The Full Monty and Waking Ned Devine,” rely on good writing and good performances rather than a sledgehammer or toilet to make you laugh - and it made us laugh repeatedly.

The movie appears to have gone nowhere, and that’s a shame because it really is a charmer.

Catteneo’s direction is first rate. He’s gone out of his way to craft beautiful shots you wouldn’t think would matter in a movie like this (one exterior shot of the prison includes a lovely rainbow that, whether coincidence or not, elevates it from a typical establishment shot to a gorgeous piece of cinematography), though that never gets in the way of the story or the performances.

The DVD does it justice. It’s in anamorphic widescreen, 16x9 TV compatible, and the picture quality is wonderful. Images are sharp and colors are bright - just as the DVD format should be. Audio is Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and it’s also excellent.

The only extra is the theatrical trailer.

If you like this type of gentle, intelligent British comedy, you really should give Lucky Break a chance.

Lucky Break, from Paramount Home Video
108 min, anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1), 16x9 TV compatible, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring James Nesbitt, Olivia Williams, Timothy Spall, Bill Nighy, Lennie James, and Christopher Plummer
Produced by Barnaby Thompson and Peter Cattaneo
Written by Ronan Bennett, Directed by Peter Cattaneo

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