Prison stuff. In prison movies.
One thing seems to unify the views of those who have provided synopses of this melodrama; despite the impression given by the film’s title, the prison content, they all agree, is disappointingly brief.
(more…)Posted on September 29th, 2026 at 9:29 pm. Updated on October 1st, 2026 at 1:05 pm.
There were lots of good prison films in the ’50s. Well, some. This one, sadly, is not one of them. It struggles to make up its mind as to whether it is a prison movie or a slightly icky love story, or maybe even a courtroom drama (saved only by the fact that there are no courtroom scenes) in which the protagonist must somehow prove her innocence without actually trying to do so.
(more…)Posted on September 24th, 2026 at 12:47 pm. Updated on September 27th, 2026 at 1:30 pm.
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.
First things first: Lokillo is the name by which comedian Yédison Flórez is better known, and ‘Mi Otra Yo’ translates as ‘My Other Self’. The word ‘lokillo’ conveys a sense of a little bit mad; a little bit loco. And a little bit loco, in this case, is a man pretending to be a woman in a women’s prison, partly for witness protection purposes and partly as an undercover informant. Comedy gold. (more…)
Posted on December 11th, 2021 at 9:08 pm. Updated on December 11th, 2021 at 9:08 pm.
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.
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.
This is a ‘thinly disguised’ account of the prison life of Soledad Brother George Jackson, part of which takes in his romance with activist Angela Davis. It’s an unheralded ’70s prison movie that deserves more heralding, even if it loses a bit of momentum once prisoner and professor meet and start cheesily narrating their letters to each other accompanied by a laid-back R&B soundtrack. (more…)
Posted on December 27th, 2020 at 3:29 pm. Updated on December 27th, 2020 at 3:29 pm.
“I don’t want to get to be you and stagnate and finish here… I don’t want to grow old living in here,” says prison novice Martine Fresienne (Martine Brochard) to her cellmates. What her pronouncement lacks in diplomacy, it makes up for in wackiness. (more…)
Posted on August 30th, 2020 at 7:39 pm. Updated on August 30th, 2020 at 7:39 pm.
At last! A prison movie that knows its plaice! (more…)
Posted on August 19th, 2020 at 10:20 pm. Updated on August 19th, 2020 at 10:20 pm.
“Without the elephant of a doubt” (to quote ‘Slip’ Mahoney), this 39th Bowery Boys comedy is a better prison movie than their 19th [Triple Trouble (1950)]. I’m just not sure that says a great deal. (more…)
Posted on June 20th, 2020 at 1:49 pm. Updated on August 2nd, 2020 at 10:50 pm.