I’m deeply, deeply suspicious of any film where the Director casts himself in the lead role and not only gives himself the best lines, but gets to bed the beautiful woman and be the hero all at the one time. Not even Woody Allen can always pull that off, and Rob Schneider certainly can’t in this limp, misconceived comedy. But it’s not just that. This is a one-joke movie, and when that one joke concerns homosexual rape, or any rape (even if it’s mostly about the avoidance of rape), it’s going to have trouble making me laugh.
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Posted on May 31st, 2009 at 6:15 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:42 pm.
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 is said that this is the best of the Elvis Presley films, which in itself is a worry. (more…)
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 8:56 pm. Updated on August 27th, 2009 at 10:20 pm.
I know it doesn’t pretend to represent real life, but as a prison movie it’s hard to take at all seriously from the point at which the newly-arrived prisoner is given a pat down search while naked. What does one hope to find by running one’s hands over a bare armpit, one wonders? They obviously do lots of things differently in Germany. (more…)
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 8:47 pm. Updated on August 27th, 2009 at 10:15 pm.
This is sort of a Hindi version of Brokedown Palace (1999), but where Brokedown leaves lots of questions, this answers the lot. (more…)
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 8:42 pm. Updated on April 18th, 2020 at 4:25 pm.
While one of the dramatic turning points occurs in a prison, most of this movie occurs outside. Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) becomes a white supremacist pin-up boy after his father is murdered by black youths, and when his car is broken into by some young blacks who he kicked off the local basketball court (in a winner-owns-the-court game), he kills two of them. (more…)
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 8:39 pm. Updated on August 27th, 2009 at 10:10 pm.
Fine drama, directed by and starring Edward James Olmos, which charts the life of Santana, an East Los Angeles Hispanic crime boss from – well, before he was born, really – through his teenage years, his time in juvenile detention and later Folsom Prison, then back out on the streets and back in jail. It follows a very similar path to Bound by Honour (even sharing features like the main character having a blonde, white-skinned right hand man and a young teenager dying from a drug overdose) but does everything better, including selling the message that gang life is destroying the potential of young Hispanic kids. (more…)
Posted on May 18th, 2009 at 8:37 pm. Updated on August 27th, 2009 at 10:10 pm.
I had a bit of trouble with this film. I don’t know whether it was that I’d read somewhere that it was the Indian Shawshank Redemption (not that I entirely understood what that meant), or that I kept thinking that the charismatic leading man was Leonard Cohen. Maybe it was the plot. (more…)
Posted on May 17th, 2009 at 1:29 pm. Updated on April 19th, 2020 at 10:04 pm.
Literally ‘The Hot Death’, and an absolute shocker. Made by a director who apparently went on to make some ‘legendary’ exploitation movies, this is a boring, limp-scripted, horribly acted, and uninspired effort. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 11:57 pm. Updated on August 11th, 2013 at 12:02 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.