My wife tells me that I have trouble in admitting I’m wrong. Luke Sinclair (Dorian Harewood) won’t tell the Parole Board that he was wrong in having killed the man who was taunting him after being acquitted (on a technicality) of killing his wife and daughter, so he is forced to do most of his 15 year sentence. For his obduracy he is also required to reprise the Nicolas Cage role in Con Air (1997) in this low-grade thriller, also known as Steel Train (to distinguish it from what? Papier-mâché Train? Polyester Train?). They could well have called it Con Rail. (more…)
Posted on April 5th, 2010 at 6:06 pm. Updated on April 5th, 2010 at 6:06 pm.
This is a simple story about honour. And love. And how one man finds them both on an island penal colony. (more…)
Posted on April 2nd, 2010 at 5:21 pm. Updated on April 2nd, 2010 at 5:35 pm.
There are plenty who are touting this as a masterpiece of dark and gritty prison realism. And there are certainly some masterful bits. But is it a prison movie masterpiece? I’m not so sure. (more…)
Posted on February 21st, 2010 at 6:42 pm. Updated on February 21st, 2010 at 6:42 pm.
Just how much acclaim should you give a film for its worthiness alone? As an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Mickey B is just OK (and even then, much better, I suspect, if you’re familiar with the plot of Macbeth; half the pleasure is in the recognition of each new character and scene). But as a story of a group of real prisoners, mostly murderers and long-termers in Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland, making some important discoveries about themselves while making the film, it’s inspiring. (more…)
Posted on February 6th, 2010 at 9:02 pm. Updated on February 6th, 2010 at 9:02 pm.
I don’t know whether it was the grainy print, or the DVD cover which has Leonor Benedetto looking like a bloke in drag, or maybe the general sleaziness, but Atrapadas (which translates as ‘Trapped’) has a definite ’70s feel about it. I kept waiting for Pam Grier to make an appearance. (more…)
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 9:16 pm. Updated on February 2nd, 2010 at 7:54 pm.
There are echoes of all sorts of other movies in Diamond Geezer (known as Rough Diamond in Australia). The plot (master criminal seeks perfect alibi by escaping from prison, committing a huge robbery and then returning to prison before anyone notices that he’s been gone) is very reminiscent of Two Way Stretch (1960). The main character, Des (David Jason), seems to borrow some features from ‘Blanco’ Webb, the elderly prisoner Sir David played in the Porridge TV series. And the prison’s top dog, Mr Fellows (Gary Whelan), carries on a fine British film tradition [The Italian Job (1960), and Porridge (1979) for starters] of crime lords ruling the prison from their prison cells, not always in a gentlemanly manner. It’s all very comfortably familiar. (more…)
Posted on January 17th, 2010 at 4:38 pm. Updated on January 25th, 2010 at 11:45 pm.
This has been referred to as India’s answer to The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and you can sort of see why. Both feature an innocent man in jail, denied justice, and both Andy Dufresne in Shawshank and Parag Dixit in this movie are detached outsiders in the prison environment. But that’s about where the similarity ends. While Andy calmly and patiently plays the game, Parag is intense, humourless, and in a perpetual seethe at the injustice of it all. (more…)
Posted on December 27th, 2009 at 8:03 pm. Updated on January 2nd, 2010 at 11:26 am.
A curious mix of British prison architecture (well, Dublin’s Kilmainham Jail), the look and feel of a US reality TV show (think ‘Britain’s Unruliest Prisons’ with prisoners dressed in thin beige boilersuits), and some very un-American and unexpected plot twists that unapologetically break faith with the genre. (more…)
Posted on May 23rd, 2009 at 10:38 pm. Updated on September 3rd, 2009 at 10:15 pm.
It sadly says much about the world that there could be ten Ernest P Worrell movies. This is the third or fourth, and I’m pleased to say that I haven’t seen any of the other nine. It seems that the character was created for a series of TV ads and just grew from there; how remains a mystery. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 11:52 pm. Updated on August 23rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm.
Written by Edward Bunker (who did 20-odd years in prison himself) and shot partly in Philadelphia’s closed Holmesburg Prison and several working prisons (substituting for San Quentin, where the film is set), this film about survival in prison should at least have some authenticity. And it does – to a degree. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 4:27 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm.