The Cell Mate

» 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.

» Lokillo en: Mi Otra Yo (2021, Colombia)

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.

» 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.

» Brothers (1977, USA)

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.

» Prigione di donne / Riot in a Women’s Prison (1974, Italy)

“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.

» Penguins Behinds Bars (2003, Canada)

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.

» Jail Busters (1955, USA)

“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.

» The Outer Gate (1937, USA)

I dug this melodrama out of my stellar ‘Prison Break Classics’ collection and made three unhappy discoveries: it doesn’t involve a prison break, there’s a much better print of it on YouTube, and while it was known for a while as Behind Prison Bars, very little action takes place in prison. Oh well. (more…)

Posted on May 27th, 2020 at 12:55 pm. Updated on May 27th, 2020 at 12:55 pm.

» El hoyo / The Platform (2019, Spain)

There are few prison movies as patently and transparently allegorical as this. In fact, I can’t bring another to mind that comes close. And it’s almost as hard to think of a movie prison that shares fewer features with prisons as we know them; but an intriguing prison it is. (more…)

Posted on May 11th, 2020 at 10:31 pm. Updated on May 11th, 2020 at 10:42 pm.