Vinnie Jones leads his fellow prisoners on the soccer pitch in 'Mean Machine.'

English soccer is known for its physical play, and Vinnie Jones earned his fame as one of England's most physical players. A famous photograph appeared in all the London tabloids of an incident during a match wherein Jones, acting under no visible provocation, sidled up to superstar Paul Gascoigne while waiting for a free kick, grabbed Gascoigne's testicles, and performed his own version of The Nutcracker. Since his sports career ended, he has landed on his feet as a player in movies, bringing intelligence and humor to tough-guy roles in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and even livening up Hollywood dreck such as Gone in 60 Seconds. Moving from supporting actor to lead in his latest film, Jones takes the ball and runs with it.

Mean Machine is a remake of Robert Aldrich's 1971 football comedy The Longest Yard, with a change of nation and sport. Jones, in a role originated by Burt Reynolds, plays Danny "Mean Machine" Meehan, a soccer star banished from the sport after throwing a match while playing for England's national team. He completes his disgrace by getting three years in prison for a drunken assault on two policemen. (He prefaces the assault with a line straight out of The Longest Yard: He dismisses a short-statured officer with the words, "Oh, look! A miniature cop!") In the clink, the prison's crooked governor (David Hemmings), who happens to own a semi-pro soccer team made up of prison guards, asks Danny to coach his players. Accepting the job will make Danny even more of a target for the other inmates than he already is, but turning it down will create problems for him, too, so he proposes a third option: He'll prepare the team by fielding his own team of prisoners and playing against the guards in an exhibition game.

The Longest Yard's main drawing card was its use of football violence for slapstick comedy. ("Duh, I think I broke his freakin' neck!") The remake's at a disadvantage because soccer -- even as it's played by the English -- isn't nearly as rough as American football, and because pro wrestling has raised the bar for body-slamming comic violence since 1971. The best comic situations from the original are repeated here, in many cases to lesser effect. Many of the dramatic moments are ruined by John Murphy's score; the ska and Britpop tunes in the background aren't bad, but the instrumental music underlines all the emotions in red. It's insulting.

Moviegoers familiar with Guy Ritchie's films will recognize the visual style here: photogenically grimy interiors filmed with fancy camerawork and slow-motion shots. Like Ritchie, director Barry Skolnick is a first-time filmmaker from the music video and tv commercial route. He isn't as hyperactive as Ritchie (not many filmmakers are), but the more important difference is that he isn't as aggressively cool. Skolnick's staging of the climactic game will satisfy any fan of sports movies. He doesn't have the same affinity for slapstick that Aldrich had in the original film, but he makes up for it with his sympathetic portrayal of the cons. He's working with stock characters, but he gives them, and the actors portraying them, room to operate. Jason Statham plays a manic muscleman who suddenly and hilariously warms to the idea of playing soccer when he's told that he'll be up against the guards. As a gangster with the run of the jail, basset-hound-faced John Forgeham exudes a soft-spoken danger.

Still, the star carries the movie. The extended screen time exposes some of Jones' limitations as an actor. His character's supposed to be a guy whose love of fast living has brought him low, but Jones doesn't look all that turned on when the governor's secretary (Sally Phillips) comes on to him or, at the beginning of the film, when he leads police on a car chase while swigging from a bottle. As a character actor, he was free to concentrate on generating comic business, but as a lead he has to react to business coming from other actors, and he's not as good at that end of the job.

Even with those shortcomings, however, Jones' enviable natural ease with his lines and the camera comes through. He's good at conveying Danny's disgrace upon his imprisonment, and his delivery of a pregame pep talk is as stirring as anything you'd get from a veteran actor. He even looks subtly moved when hearing the regretful reminiscences of an elderly prisoner (David Kelly, who doesn't milk the role for sympathy the way other older actors might). Proving that he's much more than his tough-guy shtick, Jones takes a story written for someone else -- Burt Reynolds in his marvelous prime, no less -- and makes the character completely his own. That's what they call star power, and from a former midfielder, it's pretty impressive.

You can reach Kristian Lin at kristian.lin@fwweekly.com.