Just in case a cop in prison who is actually an undercover cop in prison isn’t complex enough, this also boasts a prison guard who is undercover as a guard but who has worked for the undercover cop and is now working to keep him undercover, and, in the next cell to the undercover cop, a university professor (who at one point also claims to be an undercover cop) who is also a psychologist who has, as an ongoing client, a woman who thinks that he is her dead husband whom the undercover cop is convicted of killing. Phew!
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Posted on April 28th, 2013 at 8:55 pm. Updated on April 28th, 2013 at 8:55 pm.
I’m not overly conversant with the horror genre, but I think that what this movie is trying to say is that it is a horrible job being a prison warden. (more…)
Posted on March 31st, 2013 at 1:22 pm. Updated on March 16th, 2014 at 8:30 am.
Not to be confused with So Evil, So Young (1961) or The Weak and the Wicked (1954). But it does share something with both of those British movies – the young women in this reform school are not particularly bad, or wicked, or evil. Some, surprisingly, are even youngish. (more…)
Posted on March 26th, 2013 at 9:42 pm. Updated on March 26th, 2013 at 9:42 pm.
“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.
Ji?í Kajínek is the most famous prisoner in the Czech Republic. Some people think he’s innocent of the crimes for which he is serving a life sentence – the murders of a crime boss and his bodyguard, and the attempted murder of a third man. He is the only man to have escaped from the Mírov Prison, in 2000, which would seem to have led to legend status being bestowed upon him. Kajínek is loosely based around his case. It’s hard to categorise; it’s not a prison film, sadly, and more biographical murder mystery. It has some elements of a classic thriller, but one of which all Czechs, presumably, already know the outcome: Kajínek has not been exonerated and remains very much in jail.
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Posted on March 10th, 2013 at 4:30 pm. Updated on March 10th, 2013 at 10:14 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.
I’d ignored this for years, believing it to be a prisoner-of war movie (a genre I am – for no discernible reason – at great pains to avoid), until it was very sensibly pointed out that despite it being set in a prison which holds only soldiers, it is “not POW, but actually a detention centre for English soldiers who (have behaved) badly. Ergo, prison!” It’s true; in my ignorance I had neglected a truly magnificent prison flick. (more…)
Posted on February 13th, 2013 at 8:59 pm. Updated on August 29th, 2019 at 8:41 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.
By the time The Hurricane was made, American moviegoers were already well used to the brutality of the French penal colonies from films such as Condemned! (1927) and Escape from Devil’s Island (1935). This provides another opportunity to take a swipe at the French for their administration of justice (and management of their overseas territories), this time in French Polynesia. (more…)
Posted on January 20th, 2013 at 6:59 pm. Updated on January 20th, 2013 at 6:59 pm.