People are voting emotionally.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

We watched this on DVD last night, New Year's Eve. It says this movie was "inspired" by real events, but I take it the characters are all fictitious. I actually found a Colin J. Briggs who writes gardening books, but I was not able to find out if he is who the main character is based on.Clive Owen is Colin Briggs, and the opening of the movie has him throwing a trash can through the window of a flower shop, getting some yellow roses, and delivering them by bicycle to the home of Primrose, as a way of saying 'goodbye.' Then he calmly waits for the police wagon to pick him up. We find out much later that this is actually near the end of the story and most of the movie is told as a form of flashback.Briggs is in prison because in a fit of passion, as a very young man, killed someone. After 15 years he just figures he will never get out. But a new program designed to prepare prisoners for eventual parole, and skills for a job, has him transferred to a low-security compound. There are no fences and each prisoner shares a dormitory style room with one other prisoner.Briggs finds himself roomed with veteran actor David Kelly as Fergus Wilks, who looks like he won't live too much longer. Wilks was in prison for killing his 3 wives, he became a very bad person when on the booze and turned himself in to avoid further such incidents. He doesn't plan to ever get out. But he and Briggs eventually form a very close friendship.The meat of the story gets going when the governor of the prison asks the inmates to fashion a garden on the grounds. Even though none of them ever did anything like this they took to it, read books, and made a very attractive flower garden. This caught the attention of Helen Mirren as famous master gardener Georgina Woodhouse (which I found today is a very common name in England).Briggs was the natural leader of the group of inmate gardeners, he quickly developed a sense of how to do things. In the process he developed an attraction to Natasha Little as Primrose, the daughter of Georgina. Primrose had no gardening talent, but otherwise a very intelligent and attractive young woman.A very nice movie, a nice story, entertaining, with very good acting. Highly recommended. While it has many romantic-comedy elements, it is not overdone at all, no slapstick.SPOILERS: We find that Briggs was in prison for killing his own brother, whom he caught in the act with the girl he was hoping to marry. He didn't really intend to kill him, but in his rage that was the result. During the story we see, Briggs is the first to be paroled, and even with the help of Georgina is unable to find a gardening job. After months he is still delivering flowers by bicycle. So he decides to return to the low-security prison and his gardening, and that is why he broke into the flower shop, it was the way he broke his parole. The yellow roses signified "goodbye". But Briggs and Primrose were able to talk again at a fancy London flower show the inmates participated in, and he asked her to wait for him when he got out again in a few months. She said she would.

Clive Owen is one of my favourite British actors. He first caught my attention in the early 90s with the British TV series Chancer. Even at the tender age of 25, he was quite excellent in the role of a roguishly likable financial analyst who could turn ruthless at the drop of a hat.Although the series only lasted 20 episodes, Owen remained uniformly excellent, and quite effortless in his ability to appear charming or devious whenever it was required of him. Unfortunately, after the series wrapped (ahead of its time), the film roles Owen so richly deserved just weren't rolling in. He was forced to potter about in TV movie territory for much of the following 90s, a medium where Owen's talents were completely wasted.But then in 1998, his role in the noirish gambling thriller Croupier was the part that finally made Hollywood sit up and take notice of Clive Owen. It was his strongest role in years. The first one he'd been given since Chancer that reminded audiences what a charismatic and magnetic performer Clive can be.Its taken a further six years, but its only now really that Clive Owen is getting the attention (and respect) that he deserves. Something long overdue. He's established himself as a perfect leading man in some of the best films of the past few years, including Sin City, Inside Man and especially Children of Men. Quite a hat trick!Greenfingers was made at a time when Clive Owen still hadn't quite ascended to the A-list. And while Greenfingers didn't exactly raise his profile the way Croupier did, its still another of his good ones. The plot is something that shouldn't even begin to work. A group of prisoners placed in a gardening program, and it turns out to be their true vocation. Its something that leaves itself open to any number of criticisms. That it's too sugary for its own good. It paints an inaccurate portrait of life in prison. And that such progressive prison systems only exist in fiction.Personally I myself prefer prison dramas that are grittier. The Shawshank Redemption still holds the crown there, but with Clive Owen in the lead, and the superb Helen Mirren on the sidelines, Greenfingers is a winner all the way.Greenfingers is quite easy to get into. Joel Hershman, directing and writing sets up scenes well. It clocks in at a fine 90 minutes, so it never outstays its welcome. And the acting from all involved makes the film never less than pleasant to watch.Clive Owen plays Colin Briggs, a man who's been in prison ever since he killed his brother at the age of 18. He gets transferred to Edgefield, a more progressive prison system that favours rehabilitation over incarceration.For the first month, Colin keeps his head down. Left to his own devices. And forced to live with the guilt he secretly feels over the death of his brother. But one of the inmates and Colin's roommate Fergus Wilks (a very impressive David Kelly) takes an instant liking to Colin. Its Fergus who introduces Colin to the world of gardening when he gives him a packet of flower seeds for Christmas.By pure chance, when he buries them in the yard, Colin produces double-violets, all the more remarkable considering the awful soil he has to work with. The prison warden, Governor Hodge (Warren Clarke) senses that within Colin beats the heart of a true gardener. And starts up a gardening program.Along with Fergus and a group of selected inmates, they turn the barren wasteland of Edgefield into a lush garden. And when Georgina Woodhouse, (Helen Mirren), a respected horticulturist pays a visit, she sponsors Edgefield at the Hampton Court Flower Show. Accusations, parole hearings and even mice conspire against them, but can you win if you're a jailbird?Greenfingers is a film that reminds a lot of Sister Act. That of a really quite predictable film with lots of easily guessable character arcs and scenarios, but thanks to the finely shaded performances by the cast, it goes some way towards making up for all that, and makes the film more entertaining than it might have been in the hands of a less able cast.Clive Owen is expectedly excellent. He has a way of downplaying emotion without coming off as bland. And he utilises it to great effect. He's had a hard life and nothing to live for when he gets out of prison, but when he discovers his talent for gardening, it ignites a passion in him he never knew existed. Something that he will fight to protect. His speech at his parole hearing concerning how gardening has turned his life around is actually quite moving. What could have been trite and mawkish in another actor's hands becomes inspiring in Owen's.I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Helen Mirren, but she holds the screen effortlessly whenever she is around as Georgina Woodhouse (should have been Wodehouse, don't you think!?). Its an eccentric part, but Helen Mirren's fine line in arch delivery ensures you'll love her. Despite the god-awful hats she has to wear throughout!Also impressive is David Kelly as Fergus. A man who (like Colin) has spent much of his life in prison, he's become resigned to the fact he will die within the walls of Edgefield. His father/son relationship with Colin is nicely handled too, and when he does die, I like the monument they erect in his honour. Placed fittingly in the garden.Some plot strands are left dangling, like a prisoner who escapes and then gets forgotten about by the film, but I enjoyed Greenfingers for its lack of pretension. A very gracious film you don't see enough of on television nowadays. It has a nice moral too. How watching your garden grow can also do the same for your self-esteem.

To anyone who happens to stumble across this little-known film, I recommend it highly. Five English prisoners, led by moody Colin (Clive Owen) and optimistic Fergus (David Kelly), undertake a horticultural adventure while at an open prison. They are a motley crew aiming for identity beyond their prison status and drab uniforms. Helen Mirren is delightful as a local gardening celebrity who sponsors the prisoners in their first flower show. This movie is a feel-good, uplifting tale with no dull moments and a fun cast with a lot of variety. There is some strong language and brief nudity (a shame, because it will stop some from seeing it,) but all in all a gem of a movie. Most will enjoy it thoroughly!! Cheers for Greenfingers!

I would probably go to see Clive Owens and Helen Mirren read the phone book, and I practically did in "Greenfingers," but it's still fun for fans of Brit coms and such. While Clive's "Colin" isn't one of the hardened convicts of HBO's "Oz," he is emotionally cut-off and his blooming with his flowers is sweet, facilitated by mentor David Kelley (from "Waking Ned Devine"). The love story doesn't quite ignite.The other reformed-through-horticulture prison-mates are the usual Brit class and race rainbow, so are hard to understand sometimes.It will make a nice episode of PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre." (originally written 8/4/2001)