Borstal Boy 2000 N/R, 92 min. Genre: Drama
Director: Peter Sheridan Cast: Shawn Hatosy, Danny Dyer, Michael York, Robin Laing, Mark Huberman, Eva Birthistle, Lee Ingleby
During World War II, I.R.A. soldier Brendan Behan (Shawn Hatosy) is caught trying to assemble a bomb in Liverpool. He is sentenced to an East Anglian reform school where his fellow inmates include a Polish Jew, a Scot, a rapist, and a gay sailor. By movie's end, the story implies that Brendan is transformed by his experience into an enlightened young man intent on leaving his fight for the I.R.A. and discovering his creative self. The facts of Brendan Behan's life, however, do not support the conclusion. Upon release from reform school, Brendan returned to Ireland where he shot a policeman and was sentenced to prison–the first of a number of prison terms.
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Greenfingers 2000 R, 91 min. Genre: Comedy
Director: Joel Hershman Cast: Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, David Kelly, Warren Clarke, Danny Dyer, Adam Fogerty, Paterson Joseph, Natasha Little, Peter Guinness, Sally Edwards
When the time nears for his release from prison, a sullen Colin Briggs (Clive Owen) is transferred to a minimum-security prison, Edgefield, where he shares a room with a kindly older prisoner, Fergus Wilks (David Kelly). A wary friendship develops, and Briggs receives a packet of violet seeds from Wilks for Christmas. Briggs plants them, they survive, and it isn't long before he is gardening with other prisoners. When gardening guru Georgina Woodhouse (Helen Mirren) comes to town for a booksigning, she spots Briggs' garden and gets the jailed gardeners a spot in a contest for England's best garden at the Hampton Court Flower Show. Meanwhile, romance blooms between Briggs and Woodhouse's daughter, Primrose (Natasha Little), who have plans for their own "gardening."
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High Heels and Low Lifes 2001 R, 86 min. Genre: Comedy
Director: Mel Smith Cast: Minnie Driver, Mary McCormack, Kevin McNally, Mark Williams, Danny Dyer, Michael Gambon, Darren Boyd, Simon Scardifield, Len Collin, Jane Partridge
In this crime/comedy, nurse Shannon (Minnie Driver) and her friend, Frances (Mary McCormack), overhear a phone conversation about a bank heist, which leads the two women into a plan to blackmail the robbers.
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Human Traffic 1999 R, 87 min. Genre: Drama
Director: Justin Kerrigan Cast: John Simm, Lorraine Pilkington, Shaun Parkes, Danny Dyer, Nicola Reynolds, Dean Davies, Andrew Lincoln, Carl Cox, Jan Anderson, Peter Bramhill
Five friends–Jip (John Simm), Lulu (Lorraine Pilkington), Koop (Shaun Parkes), Moff (Danny Dyer), and Nina (Nicola Reynolds)–represent the 1990s Youth Culture as they live their lives of "clubs, drugs, pubs, and parties" in Cardiff, Wales. It might have helped if there had been a moral to this story, but, instead, the director, Justin Kerrigan, seems intent on condoning the drug world and ignoring its inherent dangers.
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Mean Machine 2001 R, 98 min. Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance
Director: Barry Skolnick Cast: Vinnie Jones, David Kelly, David Hemmings, Vas Blackwood, Jason Statham, Robbie Gee, John Forgeham, Jason Flemyng, Ralph Brown, Geoff Bell, Sally Phillips, Danny Dyer, Martin Wimbush, David Reid, David Cropman
Vinnie Jones plays the out-of-shape jock Danny Meehan in the U.K. remake of Robert Aldrich's "The Longest Yard." This time around, U.K. football (what the U.S. calls soccer) provides the hook for prison inmates taking on prison guards in one free-for-all game.
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Second Generation 2003 TV, 136 min. Genre: Drama
Director: Jon Sen Cast: Parminder Nagra, Om Puri, Christopher Simpson, Anupam Kher, Danny Dyer, Nitin Chandra Ganatra, Rita Wolf, Amita Dhiri, Roshan Seth, Lalita Ahmed, William Beck
This made-for-TV, two-part miniseries revolves around an Indian family's problems when the father, Sharma (Om Puri), collapses into a coma. Estranged daughter Heere (Parminder Nagra) returns to their London home and finds her two sisters (Amita Dhiri and Rita Wolf) ready to turn off their father's life support machine and take control of his business. Then, Sharma wakes up, and Heera tries to make peace, but there are many problems to overcome.
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| 1. Borstal Boy (2000)
2. Greenfingers (2000)
3. High Heels and Low Lifes (2001)
4. Human Traffic (1999)
5. Mean Machine (2001)
6. Second Generation (2003)
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