Prison stuff. In prison movies.
When even some of the Stallone-friendly sites suggest that this isn’t one of Sylvester Stallone’s best movies, you are entitled to approach it with trepidation. But it’s no worse than many other prison action flicks. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:53 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm.
It sounds interesting: a white prisoner on death row and his African American guard learning about themselves through the bond they develop. But things start badly in this visually murky, made-for-TV drama, and don’t get much better. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:51 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm.
My kids tell me that I don’t know how to watch action movies. They’re right. My main problem with this movie is the guns. I know I should just go with the flow, but I wonder how the guns get into a super-max prison, how criminals can’t shoot straight from several metres, and why the desperate bad guy, when he has the heroes at gunpoint after already shooting one in the stomach, would (a) not shoot them dead when they are the only people standing in the way of a successful escape bid, and (b) put down the gun so he can have a fist fight with the injured man. I know, I know. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:48 pm. Updated on March 8th, 2016 at 3:02 pm.
Mildly entertaining action flick that starts with the hero Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) absurdly copping a 7 year whack for manslaughter while defending himself and his pregnant wife in a fight against three men, and gets more preposterous from then on. He serves his time and is required to fly back home on a prison plane with a collection of caged psychopaths being transported to a new high security prison. Oh oh. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:46 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm.
‘What is society’s responsibility for ever increasing murders? What shall be done with the murderers? The Last Mile does not pretend to give an answer. Society must find its own solution. But murder on the heels of murder is not that solution.’ The Last Mile kicks off with this quote from Lewis E Lawes, Warden of New York’s Sing Sing Prison, and writer of another 1932 film, 20,000 Years in Sing Sing. If you’re looking for a film that extols the virtues of the death penalty, this ain’t that film. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:44 pm. Updated on May 22nd, 2010 at 8:37 pm.
I remember that I loved this book back in the early 1970s – a rollicking yarn, and a supposedly true account of Henri Charrière’s nine (?) escapes from prison in and around French Guiana (and notably from Devil’s Island) in the 1930s and 40s. Perhaps I was still young and impressionable when I read it, and the book is really as tedious as this long and largely uninspired film. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:40 pm. Updated on December 1st, 2018 at 8:53 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.
I know that this claims to be an action movie, but it’s really a love story. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:36 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:44 pm.
Normally I don’t include exploitation films, but this is something of a cult favourite, and supposedly different. “Smarter and more deeply meaningful than many of its European and American … counterparts” says one reviewer. Another, the trusted ‘Prison Flicks’ website, claims that, “The core of the movie is the political critique of post-war Japan, and its attempts to hide rather than reform its corrupt political and economic structure. The movie provides an image of a diseased polity, and Matsu is not so much a heroine as she is a force of nature attacking the old order.” Well, I’m not so sure. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:33 pm. Updated on March 8th, 2016 at 12:30 pm.
I remember reading Borstal Boy as a young teenager and being completely captivated by its bawdy, rollicking style and the irreverence and passion of its author, Brendan Behan. That memory makes this lukewarm adaptation of his autobiography so much more disappointing. Behan was larger than life, and this reduces him to something akin to a minor rebel in a coming-of-age story at an English boarding school. Or perhaps I’m getting the character in the book mixed up with the boozy, ribald celebrity that he was to become before drinking himself to death at 41. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 6:29 pm. Updated on December 11th, 2009 at 9:00 pm.