Prison stuff. In prison movies.
Tomorrow’s Joe is a reworking, 40+ years down the track, of the boxing manga Ashita no Joe, which had already inspired a 79-episode TV series, two feature films (one anime) and another spin-off. It’s a Rocky-esque rags-to-not-quite-riches underdog story, with prison setting the tone for what is to come. (more…)
Posted on March 13th, 2020 at 11:17 am. Updated on March 19th, 2020 at 3:49 pm.
The Informer has a little more complexity than most action thrillers. But not so much that it explains why IMDb’s précis (“An ex-convict working undercover intentionally gets himself incarcerated again in order to infiltrate the mob at a maximum security prison”) pretty much misses the point entirely. ‘Intentionally gets himself incarcerated’, yes, but he returns to prison extremely reluctantly, and only when two figurative guns are pointed at his head – one by the mob and the other by the FBI. (more…)
Posted on February 15th, 2020 at 8:22 pm. Updated on February 15th, 2020 at 8:22 pm.
Good prison comedy is a bit like the perfect crime: trickier than it looks. And it proves much too tricky in this case, although there are so few prison scenes it would be most unfair to label it a prison comedy. (more…)
Posted on January 27th, 2020 at 11:13 am. Updated on January 27th, 2020 at 11:20 am.
To be honest, this doesn’t really come close to being a prison movie… but it’s a stunning film, nonetheless, and has a few fascinating prison scenes (shot in Roumieh Prison), and tells the grim backstory of a young boy who is in the juvenile section of that prison, serving a five year sentence for wounding. (more…)
Posted on January 19th, 2020 at 8:52 pm. Updated on January 19th, 2020 at 8:52 pm.
Q: How many films are there of first world citizens being held in prison in foreign states that have different political systems, different standards of living, or different concepts of what is reasonable treatment of its prisoners? A: Quite a few. And you can add this one to the list. (more…)
Posted on December 30th, 2019 at 8:23 pm. Updated on January 19th, 2020 at 9:07 pm.
Wild gunslingin’ west meets duck soup prison escape. It’s an odd recipe. (more…)
Posted on November 2nd, 2019 at 1:38 pm. Updated on November 2nd, 2019 at 1:38 pm.
“Disgraced Navy SEAL Rick Tyler is sentenced to rot in a maximum security military prison until he is offered the opportunity to put his life on the line and win his freedom in a kill or be killed Reality TV show” is how this is marketed, often under its alternative title, Elimination Game. Once the action starts we see an image of the Neo-Alcatraz Military Prison to which Tyler had three years earlier been sentenced to rot (for life plus 1,000 years), but that’s it. No other prison bits. (more…)
Posted on October 15th, 2019 at 8:29 pm. Updated on October 15th, 2019 at 8:41 pm.
The third in the Ray Breslin Escape Plan series, this represents a major departure from the others; while the first two relied on his famed security expertise to be able to find the flaws in even the highest-tech, most secure prisons, this one takes him to an old-school, low-tech prison (played by the dilapidated Ohio State Reformatory, built in 1886) to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Chinese technology tycoon. (more…)
Posted on July 24th, 2019 at 9:27 pm. Updated on July 24th, 2019 at 9:38 pm.
Bronsonesque, I’d say. The same gleeful celebration of violence as the celebrated, violent British biopic Bronson (2009), but with a more noble cause and less theatre. (more…)
Posted on July 7th, 2019 at 12:48 pm. Updated on July 7th, 2019 at 12:48 pm.
The embedded subtitles on this dubbed-into-English film (at least the version on YouTube) would seem to be a mixture of Danish and Finnish or other Scandinavian languages, which doesn’t seem to make much sense. But then, nor does much else in the film. (more…)
Posted on June 30th, 2019 at 5:42 pm. Updated on July 7th, 2019 at 1:01 pm.