In theaters

GREENFINGERS

Written and directed by Joel Hershman. 90 minutes. Rated R. Now playing, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

The new Joel Hershman comedy, “Greenfingers,” follows a group of imprisoned, blue-collar thugs whose lives are forever changed with the help of some unwanted weeds, rough hedges and a clutch of tendrils.

This odd mix of murderers, sociopaths and crooks – all of whom, incidentally, are about as threatening as a plucked petunia – are the latest to be saved by the redemptive powers of the British comedy.

Working from his own script, Hershman, who was born in Brooklyn and raised in Los Angeles, obviously has been studying the recent successes of “Billy Elliot” and “The Full Monty,” not to mention the Ealing Studios comedies of the 1940s and 1950s. He’s repackaged them, offering his own movie about a band of manly men getting a whole lot softer in the course of 90 minutes.

Loosely based on a true story, the film stars Clive Owen (“Croupier”) as Colin Briggs, a gruff, mysterious bloke sent to a low-security prison after serving 15 years in the big house for committing murder.

Now perfectly unhappy at Her Majesty’s Prison Edgefield, the grimacing, smoky Briggs eventually meets Fergus Wilks (David Kelly), an elderly lifer who hands over a package of seeds and urges Briggs to plant them.

Naturally, the damned things take off, somehow producing a vivid spray of double violets in Edgefield’s infertile soil. Now, with the word out that Briggs has a splendid set of greenfingers, the prison’s first garden is set into motion, an event that not only turns these men into buttercups, but which also garners the attention of well-known gardening maven Georgina Woodhouse (Helen Mirren), her shy daughter, Primrose (Natasha Little), and those who matter at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

What follows is predictable, preachy entertainment, a movie that tries so hard to prove that even murderers have a heart, its seams pop from trying.

Mirren is fun as the showy Georgina and Owen proves he’s long overdue for a major Hollywood film, but unlike last year’s “Saving Grace,” the excellent British comedy that starred Brenda Blethyn as a sweet English lady who grew pot to pay the bills, “Greenfingers” finds only modest humor among the roses.

Grade: B-

On video and DVD

BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY

Directed by Sharon Maguire. Written by Helen Fielding, Andrew Davies, Richard

Curtis, based on Fielding’s book. 94 minutes. Rated R.

Sharon Maguire’s “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” the smart, witty adaptation of Helen Fielding’s best-selling novel, stars Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones, a thirtysomething wreck of a British career girl whose fondness for a whole host of unattractive addictions has gone a long way in putting the screws to her romantic life – and her self-esteem.

In what’s essentially a post-feminist take on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” “Bridget” is worth seeing for a lot of reasons, but mostly because of Zellweger’s performance as Bridget, a hugely likable mess of ticks and neuroses from London who’s fighting to reclaim her “self” in a society that considers single women over 30 as damaged goods.

Whether falling-down drunk, falling hard for third-rate men, or making a general fool of herself in public (and in private), Bridget Jones is never anything less than a vat of vulnerability, a misguided product of unconventional parents (Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent) having relationship problems of their own.

Yet Bridget is at a turning point. Determined to get her life back on track, she decides it’s time to change her life altogether.

To help keep her focused, she keeps a diary, one that chronicles her battle with her addictions to food, cigarettes, booze and men – not to mention with the real enemy in her life: Bridget Jones.

With great energy, style and humor, Maguire takes us into Bridget’s tumultuous journey out of spinsterhood and into the harrowing world of dating.

In short order – and with the help of some extremely short skirts – Bridget takes up with her boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), and then with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), a human-rights barrister and former childhood playmate of Bridget’s who initially finds her to be “verbally incontinent” before ultimately claiming he likes her just the way she is.

Not enough can be said for Zellweger’s terrific performance as Bridget, particularly since the Texas-born actress became a scapegoat in the British press when it was announced that she’d be playing Fielding’s very British character.

Apparently, no one across the pond thought Zellweger could pull off an English accent – which she does with great panache.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in the Style section, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.