Prison stuff. In prison movies.
A curious mix of British prison architecture (well, Dublin’s Kilmainham Jail), the look and feel of a US reality TV show (think ‘Britain’s Unruliest Prisons’ with prisoners dressed in thin beige boilersuits), and some very un-American and unexpected plot twists that unapologetically break faith with the genre. (more…)
Posted on May 23rd, 2009 at 10:38 pm. Updated on September 3rd, 2009 at 10:15 pm.
It sadly says much about the world that there could be ten Ernest P Worrell movies. This is the third or fourth, and I’m pleased to say that I haven’t seen any of the other nine. It seems that the character was created for a series of TV ads and just grew from there; how remains a mystery. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 11:52 pm. Updated on August 23rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm.
Written by Edward Bunker (who did 20-odd years in prison himself) and shot partly in Philadelphia’s closed Holmesburg Prison and several working prisons (substituting for San Quentin, where the film is set), this film about survival in prison should at least have some authenticity. And it does – to a degree. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 4:27 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm.
A real ‘70s action flick; tough and gritty. Jim Brown plays the handsome, stoic Curtis Hook. Hook comes to jail on some relatively minor charges, but everyone knows that he alone knows where the proceeds of a drug heist (an attaché case full of skag and $1.5m in cash) are stashed. So he’s a marked man in ‘the slams’, with everyone wanting a piece of what he’s got on the outside. We are asked to join with Hook and hope that he gets away with all the dough… which means that we have to conveniently set aside the seven drug dealers and two accomplices that he killed in order to walk away with the money. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 4:12 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
This is the film to wear if you’re invited to a 1970s fancy dress party. Shot on location in California’s Folsom Prison (with inmates playing some of the roles) and looking like a grainy home movie, it’s a bit like a fairytale with some solid, believable snippets of prison life thrown in. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 4:06 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
It’s not often that one screenplay gets made into three films. The Mean Machine is the British version of The Longest Yard (1974 and 2005), with a soccer match replacing the gridiron contest between guards and cons. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:52 pm. Updated on June 2nd, 2018 at 11:08 pm.
Also known as The Concrete Jungle. Advertised when it was released as ‘The Toughest Movie Ever Made in Britain’, this is part underworld movie and part prison movie. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:20 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
This is your line-and-length type prison movie, scoring awfully high on the cliché count. Which is a shame because it’s co-written by Truman Capote and is filmed grainily on location in a prison in Salt Lake City (I just can’t work out which one) with plenty of prisoners as extras. The backdrop is stunning and the film should be better. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 2:51 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
A made-for-TV women’s prison movie that tells a sad, bleak tale, with a certain grittiness to match. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 2:47 pm. Updated on January 1st, 2019 at 9:30 am.
I grew up with Porridge (the TV series), and when I started working in prisons I thought it more accurately portrayed what life inside the walls was really like than the more dramatic images of prison on TV – which usually concentrated on the violence and brutality. It showed humour, it showed some mutual regard (and some mutual contempt) between prison officers and prisoners, and it showed good-hearted, bumbling staff working alongside officious, cynical ones. Not so many good officers, now that I come to think of it.
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 1:26 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.