The Stabbing

» Escape from Death Block 13 (2021, USA)

If there’s genre of prison movies that sees the whole of a prison as one criminal enterprise, this would be in there; not just a few bad eggs, but an entire system openly engaging in criminal behaviour. How and why are trickier questions. (more…)

Posted on May 7th, 2023 at 1:01 pm. Updated on May 7th, 2023 at 1:01 pm.

» The System (2022, USA)

Maybe new prisoner Terry Savage (Tyrese Gibson) should have been suspicious when the Police Commissioner implored him to go undercover in the Degnan Correctional Institute, a private prison, because they had nobody to tell them about all the evil things that were going down in there – but still managed to get an encrypted cell phone into his cell before he arrived. Maybe the viewer should have been suspicious at the first point at which it becomes evident that the serious ‘human rights violations (and) corruption’ that the Commissioner was keen to root out are principally, aside from a thriving drug dealership, a fight club. (more…)

Posted on February 13th, 2023 at 9:50 am. Updated on February 13th, 2023 at 9:50 am.

» Git / Wicked (2015, Poland)

It’s a short film, this one, but a good ‘un…

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Posted on January 3rd, 2022 at 10:13 am. Updated on January 3rd, 2022 at 10:13 am.

» Baykot / Boycott (1986, Iran)

There are plenty of films about political prisoners, and plenty about jail politics. There are not so many where those two overlap to the degree that they do in this movie.

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Posted on September 12th, 2021 at 10:40 pm. Updated on September 12th, 2021 at 10:47 pm.

» La nuit des rois / Night of the Kings (2020, Ivory Coast / Canada / France / Senegal)

Although this is very much set in present day Ivory Coast, it has the form of an Elizabethan drama, augmented by a Greek chorus; a cultural and temporal potpourri. It might not work magnificently, but magnificently, it works. (more…)

Posted on August 24th, 2021 at 8:14 pm. Updated on August 24th, 2021 at 8:14 pm.

» Heart, Baby (2017, USA)

Someone did this film a great disservice in giving it the alternative title of The Hammer, presumably to make it appeal to a broader audience. It makes it sound very much like a testosterone-filled boxing movie, but boxing plays second fiddle to what really matters. Maybe even fourth or fifth fiddle.

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Posted on June 6th, 2021 at 10:37 pm. Updated on June 6th, 2021 at 10:37 pm.

» 40 Sticks (2020, Kenya)

This thriller is so eerily similar in parts to the Spanish film, Below Zero (2021), that you have to wonder whether a scriptwriter somewhere between Spain and Kenya – in Algeria, perhaps – was touting the outline of the story to film producers in all directions, and it got picked up by two filmmakers simultaneously. (more…)

Posted on April 27th, 2021 at 10:42 pm. Updated on April 27th, 2021 at 10:42 pm.

» El túnel de los huesos / Tunnel of Bones (2011, Argentina)

“Dreams defeat you more than the cops or the informers.” So says Vulcano (Raúl Taibo), an old school criminal who has committed 50 armed robberies on armoured vehicles, banks and other targets, and is serving a very hefty sentence as a result. But you can’t help thinking that it’s the informers who pose the biggest risk of defeating him in his latest venture.

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Posted on February 17th, 2021 at 10:28 pm. Updated on February 17th, 2021 at 10:28 pm.

» Fanged Up (2017, UK)

I think that this is the first romantic comedy I’ve seen where the couple spend a fair whack of the film drenched in the blood of exploding vampires. I may be wrong. (more…)

Posted on January 27th, 2021 at 10:46 pm. Updated on January 27th, 2021 at 10:46 pm.

» Girls of the Big House (1945, USA)

Up until this film, ‘Big House’ had always conveyed the notion of a ‘penitentiary’ to me. I now know that ‘Big House’ can also mean ‘big house’. (more…)

Posted on January 11th, 2021 at 10:10 pm. Updated on January 11th, 2021 at 10:10 pm.