It may not have been one of the great teen 1980’s “coming of age” films in the United States, but Gregory’s Girl was just that in Scotland, and in the United Kingdom in general. The “girl” in question is Dorothy, the object of Gregory’s affection and the best player on the soccer team. We have to respect anyone who is the best player on a certain team, but is this film really about the sport? Not really.
Simon Pegg has made a good living in the United Kingdom as the socially unaware, never fulfilled comedic character that you don’t know whether to love or give a backhand to for wrecking his life. In Run, Fatboy, Run, Pegg plays Dennis Doyle a slightly overweight man, who left his fiancé at the altar and has been trying to get her back ever since. When she gets engaged again, it is to an American who will be running the Nike River Run, so Dennis decides even though he is out f shape that he will do the same.
The film is more of a British style RomCom, so we get a few laughs, saw enough of a training montage for a ports film, and he completes the task at the end. Maybe not good enough to make the Hall, but definitely good enough for the ballot!
The English soccer version of the 1974 Burt Reynolds classic, The Longest Yard, saw former English soccer star, Vinnie Jones taking on the main role. For those who are not familiar with Jones, he was a very popular soccer player, known for his toughness and charisma, which translated into a successful film career. As Danny Meehan, in “Mean Machine”, he was a former English Soccer Captain, who found himself in jail due to match fixing. The plot is identical to the ’74 version, but of course with a British flavor making it unique all on its own.
Even though Charles Bronson was already in his early 50’s, this was when he finally became a movie star; though perhaps not a well respected one. This wasn’t a guy you expected to sit in the Actor’s Studio chair, nor did you really want him to. You wanted Bronson to beat the snot out of people, and in Hard Times, he plays Chaney, a bare fisted fighter in the Depression Era who beat people up. There you go, that’s the plot and isn’t that enough?