Prison stuff. In prison movies.
“Nice but preposterous,” was my wife’s judgment after watching this made-for-TV offering. Or maybe it was the other way round. Anyway, she is rarely wrong. (more…)
Posted on March 19th, 2013 at 9:00 pm. Updated on March 19th, 2013 at 9:00 pm.
This invites comparisons with Scum (1979), updated and set in the context of the London riots of 2011. But it owes more to Doing Hard Time (2004), a less auspicious film which features another hurt, angry and apparently law-abiding man intent on avenging a terrible crime… and who is similarly prepared to surrender some high moral ground by senselessly attacking police – simply to get into jail and to get access to those who have wronged him. (more…)
Posted on March 3rd, 2013 at 11:23 am. Updated on March 3rd, 2013 at 11:23 am.
“Now listen here, you cons. When I sent you up here I thought you were rats… and now I know it.” Not necessarily the smartest thing to say to a packed mess hall when you’re a DA who has been placed in a prison amidst 6,000 enemies – many of whom you’ve personally sent up the river. And perhaps a little harsh on his new colleagues… After all, what sort of reaction did he expect? (more…)
Posted on February 21st, 2013 at 8:33 pm. Updated on March 4th, 2013 at 9:21 pm.
Let’s make it clear from the outset: this is not a campy remake of Girls in Prison (1956). I wish it were. (more…)
Posted on January 27th, 2013 at 9:17 pm. Updated on January 27th, 2013 at 9:17 pm.
Some movies just make you feel old. I hadn’t seen any of the previous 7,069 Naruto manga or anime (or any of the previous seven films) which might have helped, but I still had this unsettling sense, as I struggled to keep up with the plot, of 7-year-old Japanese kids (any 7-year-old kids, really) taking it all in with ease. (more…)
Posted on January 16th, 2013 at 9:01 pm. Updated on January 16th, 2013 at 9:01 pm.
I don’t know what possessed me to watch this movie. Made in 2008, it is set years into the future (2012), at a time when the US economy has collapsed, all prisons are run for profit and cage fights in prison have become so passé that they are no longer guaranteed to make money. With just a handful of days to go in 2012, I may well have been curious to see just what advances in correctional management I had missed. (more…)
Posted on December 24th, 2012 at 4:17 pm. Updated on December 24th, 2012 at 4:18 pm.
This is one of those stories that would quickly be dismissed as ridiculous… were it not based on a true story. (more…)
Posted on December 9th, 2012 at 5:51 pm. Updated on December 9th, 2012 at 5:51 pm.
Made by some of the same people who brought you Police Academy I and II. That’s as much as you need to know, really. Or if it’s not, the fact that it has yet to make its way to a DVD release probably tells you much the same thing. (more…)
Posted on December 2nd, 2012 at 7:08 pm. Updated on December 19th, 2013 at 7:57 pm.
You know what you’re getting with the Naked Gun series, and questions like, “Is it sensible to select a high-profile cop to go undercover in a large maximum-security prison?” are happily irrelevant. (more…)
Posted on November 20th, 2012 at 8:15 pm. Updated on November 20th, 2012 at 8:15 pm.
I was hoping that the 20 minutes of action in this film that takes place in a prison – 20 minutes more, it must be said, than The Defiant Ones (1958), on which the story is loosely (and not very seriously) based – might have given this a prison movie feel. I was wrong. (more…)
Posted on October 3rd, 2012 at 9:34 pm. Updated on November 19th, 2012 at 8:33 pm.