Lucky Break (2001)
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48% of critics liked it
(44 reviews) -
50% of users liked it
(1,385 ratings)
The first feature by director Peter Cattaneo since his award-winning British smash hit The Full Monty, Lucky Break is another comedy in the same mold, this time taking place in prison. Small-time crooks Jimmy (James Nesbitt) and Rudy (Lennie James), after years of no success, decide to pull a bank… More The first feature by director Peter Cattaneo since his award-winning British smash hit The Full Monty, Lucky Break is another comedy in the same mold, this time taking place in prison. Small-time crooks Jimmy (James Nesbitt) and Rudy (Lennie James), after years of no success, decide to pull a bank job, where they are both captured and incarcerated. Jimmy is then transferred to Long Rudford, run by the steely security chief Perry (Ron Cook). Jimmy again runs into Rudy (whom he left to take the initial rap) and shares a cell with Cliff (Timothy Spall), a portly man prone to depression. The prison warden, Mortimer (Christopher Plummer), is heavily into Broadway musicals and offers Jimmy an opportunity to stage his long-unproduced work, "Nelson: The Musical," which Jimmy will use as a means to bust out of the prison. After working hard on the new tuner, the boys try to find a way both to do the show and to continue their arduously planned escape. The Sixth Sense's Olivia Williams co-stars as a guard Jimmy falls for, and British comic actors Bill Nighy and Frank Harper appear in supporting roles. ~ Jason Clark, Rovi
- Directed By
- Peter Cattaneo
- Written By
- Ronan Bennett
- Genres
- Comedy
- In Theaters
- Apr 5, 2002 Wide
- Studio
- Paramount Pictures
Critic Reviews
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Loren King, Chicago Tribune
The formulaic script, stocked with not one truly menacing inmate, echoes far too many sentimental post-Full Monty imports.
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Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press
A prison comedy that never really busts out of its comfy little cell.
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Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
It's what the Brits themselves might call fair to middling.
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Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post
No worse a film than Breaking Out, and Breaking Out was utterly charming.
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Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
A pleasing but routine British comedy set in an English prison.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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James Nesbitt
as Jimmy
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Olivia Williams
as Annabel
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Timothy Spall
as Cliff
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Bill Nighy
as Roger
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Lennie James
as Rudy
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Ron Cook
as Perry
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Frank Harper
as John Toombes
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Raymond Waring
as Darren
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Christopher Plummer
as Graham Mortimer
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Julian Barratt
as Paul
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Peter Wight
as Officer George Barratt
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Celia Imrie
as Amy
