Prison stuff. In prison movies.
You would think that a film about a young prisoner fighting for the right to keep her child with her in custody would have no trouble in having you cheering her on from the sidelines. And no doubt many people have… but she’s so unsympathetically drawn, it’s possible to be quite indifferent to whether she wins or loses. (more…)
Posted on November 16th, 2011 at 9:55 pm. Updated on November 16th, 2011 at 9:55 pm.
Whoever decided to give this film the English-audience title of Chinese Midnight Express would seem not to have seen the original Midnight Express (1978). For starters, this flick features a Chinese national – bunged up not in some awful foreign jail, but in a Chinese prison. What’s more, he’s an innocent Chinese national in a Chinese prison, and an innocent Chinese national who doesn’t catch the Midnight Express (that is, escape). In fact, no-one escapes, or even tries. It’s a bit bewildering. (more…)
Posted on April 22nd, 2011 at 4:02 pm. Updated on April 22nd, 2011 at 4:18 pm.
This is a simple murder mystery based in a prison, suspended in dense allusions to the past and the future, and lapsing in and out of an avant garde stage play. ‘Homoerotic’ is the word most commonly used to describe it, and the Japanese title apparently translates literally into ‘4.6 Billion Years of Love’, creating anticipation of a monumental love story, or preparing one for a passion which is a mere speck in the universe. As it turns out, it is love which ends not with a Big Bang but a whimper. (more…)
Posted on April 5th, 2011 at 10:30 pm. Updated on April 9th, 2011 at 5:59 pm.
If you can get past the notion that a prison guard can be stabbed to death and then, rather than have it investigated by the Police, the Warden is able to brutalise twelve prisoners for six months in the hope that one of them will falsely confess to the killing, you may well enjoy this film. (more…)
Posted on March 5th, 2011 at 10:23 pm. Updated on March 5th, 2011 at 10:23 pm.
I’ve broken my own rules here and included a futuristic prison movie. Partly because I happened to chance upon it for $6.98 in my local DVD store, and partly because when prison operators talk of correctional innovation, it remains such a solid reference point. (more…)
Posted on February 13th, 2011 at 7:59 pm. Updated on February 13th, 2011 at 7:59 pm.
A trans-Atlantic Scum, this is… based on that acclaimed British movie from 1979, and every bit as bleak. (more…)
Posted on January 3rd, 2011 at 5:15 pm. Updated on January 3rd, 2011 at 5:18 pm.
Paul Ramsey (Gregg Henry) is happily married, blonde (a bit too blonde), and of gentle disposition. The same can be said of neither Captain Omar Kinsman (George Kennedy) or his beloved Doberman Pinscher, Rattler. You know that it will be messy when all three inevitably tangle. (more…)
Posted on December 28th, 2010 at 9:12 pm. Updated on January 27th, 2013 at 12:35 pm.
Lockdown is a prison movie for traditionalists – murders, stabbings, drug use, drug deals, racial tension, rapes, crooked guards… and in the middle of it all, a good, innocent man struggling to survive. (more…)
Posted on November 26th, 2010 at 9:55 pm. Updated on March 6th, 2016 at 5:06 pm.
In a slight variation to the time-honoured story of the innocent man or woman in prison, this movie explores a parallel form of injustice – the sentencing of minor players in big drug busts to crushing terms of imprisonment under US federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws. (more…)
Posted on July 24th, 2010 at 11:49 pm. Updated on August 2nd, 2010 at 9:28 pm.
Why is it that when someone writes an autobiography we allow them to reflect glowingly on their contribution to the world, and yet when they write and produce a movie of that very same life it smacks of tacky self-indulgence and bald self-promotion? Harold Morris certainly doesn’t know the answer. (more…)
Posted on June 20th, 2010 at 2:48 pm. Updated on June 20th, 2010 at 2:48 pm.