Prison stuff. In prison movies.
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.
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.
Ringo Lam (who directed the Hong Kong Prison on Fire movies) directs this as well, but if that gives you some optimism, the fact that it stars Jean-Claude Van Damme probably won’t. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 7:25 pm. Updated on March 8th, 2016 at 3:02 pm.
The product description promised English sub-titles, the DVD itself teases by allowing English sub-titles to be selected… but nothing. So it’s a bit difficult to rate, this one; my Spanish is very poor indeed, and half the reviews of the movie on the web very earnestly outline the plot of an entirely different film and so offer no help at all. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 7:22 pm. Updated on June 4th, 2015 at 9:55 pm.
This is not a film that you would ever watch twice. It’s a low-budget offering that offers realism (the writer and director, Sean Wilson, has seemingly done time and the movie is based on his experiences) but forgets that ‘real’ doesn’t necessarily translate to ‘interesting’. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 7:18 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm.
There are some who have watched this grainy, low-budget, independently-released blaxploitation movie with poor production values and have elevated it to cult status. I’m afraid I just saw a grainy movie with poor production values and an uninventive storyline. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:38 pm. Updated on March 7th, 2016 at 11:04 am.
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 confronting black-and-white film version of the 1977 play by Ray Mooney, which purports to depict the struggle of Christopher Dale Flannery in ‘H’ Division, Pentridge, and his campaign which resulted in the Jenkinson Inquiry in 1972. Mooney, an ex-‘H’ Division prisoner himself, should know what he’s talking about, but one suspects that he also uses just a touch of artistic licence. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 4:21 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm.
Yes, that’s right; ‘Nu zi jian yu’ becomes ‘Women Prison’… and that sets the standard for the sub-titling throughout. It’s an entertaining prison movie for traditionalists: a fight for top dog, a naïve first-timer, a brutal, corrupt officer, an escape, some sexual assaults, and even a disturbance that requires the use of tear gas. Not unlike the 1987 Hong Kong film about a male prison, Prison on Fire, in some ways. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:16 pm. Updated on February 23rd, 2013 at 10:14 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.