It’s quite possible that nothing much is going right for Sarah Jo Pender; she might or might not be guilty of a double murder in 2000 for which she is serving 110 years in prison, and there’s a good chance she’s still in solitary confinement after escaping from Indiana’s Rockville Correctional Facility in August 2008. But at least she can sit back be well pleased that they chose Jenna Dewan Tatum to play her in this made-for-TV film; the choice flatters her immensely. (more…)
Posted on July 6th, 2014 at 7:50 pm. Updated on July 6th, 2014 at 7:59 pm.
This may not have been the first of the law abiding citizen movies – where decent guys engineer their transfer to prison in order to avenge horrible things done to their family members – but it came before Doing Hard Time (2004), Law Abiding Citizen (2009) and Offender (2012). And as far as escapist action flicks go, The Escapist goes OK. (more…)
Posted on June 14th, 2014 at 10:47 pm. Updated on June 14th, 2014 at 10:47 pm.
There is not much that can be said for this other than that it is a singularly distasteful, exploitative film. (more…)
Posted on June 8th, 2014 at 9:41 pm. Updated on June 8th, 2014 at 9:43 pm.
“Crime reporter Jack Moir is framed by crooked nightclub owner, ‘The Duke’. In prison, Moir plans his revenge…” is what the internet synopses say. And that’s all true. Just don’t expect a lot of prison plotting; the prison scenes account for just 5½ of the film’s 59 minutes. (more…)
Posted on May 31st, 2014 at 9:04 pm. Updated on January 1st, 2017 at 9:04 am.
The real-life trial around which this film revolves was a landmark battered wives case in Britain. Unfortunately, director Jag Mundhra makes the mistake of assuming that his audience has no intelligence at all; the story is so dumbed down and melodramatic that at every corner there is a “My God! That’s brilliant!” moment as someone thinks of flicking a light switch in the dark. (more…)
Posted on April 21st, 2014 at 7:18 pm. Updated on April 21st, 2014 at 7:18 pm.
“What are you, Kelly? A man or a rat? You’re a rat!” says newspaper editor Frank Gebhardt to Matt Kelly. This is a film about that rat… and the kid who suffers from his ratdom – his rattee. (more…)
Posted on March 31st, 2014 at 9:41 pm. Updated on March 31st, 2014 at 9:41 pm.
This is not quite a morality play, but it’s not far removed from one: the two high-living adulterers both come to sticky ends while the poor-but-honest workers prosper and find happiness. And the wrongdoer who goes to jail, but remains true in his heart, gets a second chance. Ahhh. (more…)
Posted on March 11th, 2014 at 9:25 pm. Updated on March 11th, 2014 at 9:25 pm.
This little known film noir is a prison movie in the classic mould, and features one of the coldest, most heartless prison bad guys going around. (more…)
Posted on January 1st, 2014 at 9:54 am. Updated on January 1st, 2014 at 9:55 am.
“State Prison wasn’t like any other institution in the country. It was outmoded and backdated… a sort of female Devil’s Island. A bleak prison with swamplands on all sides, smouldering with tension that festered under rules of discipline that hadn’t changed in the past hundred years. A hell hole that God and the public had forgotten.” So says Jeff Darrow, or maybe Jeff Darrell (Tom Drake), asked by the new Governor to report on prison conditions and treatment. Notwithstanding this ridiculously overblown introduction, the Bayou Reformatory for Women seems much the same as any other movie prison with spiteful guards and a toughish regime. (more…)
Posted on September 25th, 2013 at 10:16 pm. Updated on September 25th, 2013 at 10:20 pm.
Unchained is the story of one man’s struggle – with the unerringness of his belief that he’s always in the right, and against the temptation to escape. But it is (or was) also an opportunity for America’s first major minimum-security prison at Chino (the California Institute for Men) to showcase itself – and its first warden, Kenyon J Scudder, on whose book Prisoners are People the film is partly based. (more…)
Posted on August 29th, 2013 at 10:45 pm. Updated on August 29th, 2013 at 10:55 pm.