Four unremarkable boys from Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood. It’s the late ’60s. All four are sent to juvenile detention in upstate New York after a prank gone wrong (a hot dog trolley allowed to career down subway steps) nearly kills a man. At the juvenile centre, the Wilkinson Home for Boys, they are repeatedly beaten, raped and tortured by several guards. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 22nd, 2015 at 5:27 pm. Updated on August 22nd, 2015 at 5:27 pm.
The murder of 19-year-old Zahid Mubarek at London’s Feltham Young Offender Institution on 21 March 2000 posed some large, uncomfortable questions. The first-time offender from a Pakistani family was bludgeoned with a table leg wielded by 20-year-old Robert Stewart, a violent racist who had been placed in his cell some six weeks earlier. Whether it was deliberate, malicious act to place the two young men together, and why the prison failed to separate them despite many warning signs and as many as 15 opportunities to do so, became the focus of a belated official inquiry. Mubarek had been serving a 90-day sentence for the theft of £6 worth of razor blades, and had been due to be released just hours after he was attacked. He died in hospital a week later. We are Monster retells that story, largely from the perspective of the disturbed Stewart.
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Posted on August 9th, 2015 at 8:32 pm. Updated on August 9th, 2015 at 8:32 pm.
It might not be perfectly sensible to liken a person unable to escape bullying to a person trapped in prison. The bullied Sean Randall chose the one way he thought he could fight his way out of feeling that trapped. Then he went to prison and was bullied there, too. So he wanted out, desperately, but on being released was subject to restrictions that made him feel he was back in prison. Tricky.
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Posted on August 4th, 2015 at 9:16 pm. Updated on August 4th, 2015 at 9:16 pm.
OK, OK… like the odd filmed play or opera about prison on DVD, this might not strictly fit the definition of a prison movie. But it’s not so different to many movies that are filmed in studios with disjointed plots, shoddy sets and stagy dialogue. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 2nd, 2015 at 8:18 pm. Updated on September 19th, 2015 at 10:45 pm.
In the third part of this crass trilogy, writer and director Tom Six sets out again to provoke outrage and disgust. And in that, and pretty much that alone, he succeeds. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 25th, 2015 at 1:15 pm. Updated on July 25th, 2015 at 1:19 pm.
You know how sometimes one scene or one line in a movie just loses you, and you can’t find a way back in? Early in Rise nurse Will McIntyre (Nathan Wilson) is falsely accused of spiking the drink of and then raping a girl with whom he has had a one night stand. At his trial, the prosecutor asks the victim to tell the court what happened next. Falteringly, she begins with, “He had my arms pressed under…” and McIntyre’s barrister jumps up and interjects, “Your Honour, this is all hearsay evidence!” Eh? Really? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 19th, 2015 at 1:38 pm. Updated on July 19th, 2015 at 1:42 pm.
You look at this film and The Brig (1964) and it’s hard to imagine two more different approaches to managing military miscreants. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 9th, 2015 at 9:54 pm. Updated on July 9th, 2015 at 9:54 pm.
Nami Mizushima (Yuka Kosaka) is a determined young woman, intent on revenge. Innocent and framed by her prosecutor boyfriend over his killing of his lover, she is so controlled she remains continent after three days in a completely blackened room with her hands cuffed behind her back. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 6th, 2015 at 9:02 pm. Updated on July 6th, 2015 at 9:02 pm.
I remember watching this years ago and struggling to stay awake. On watching it again, it became evident very early that my sleepiness wasn’t the film’s fault. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on June 28th, 2015 at 5:00 pm. Updated on June 29th, 2015 at 8:42 pm.
Shadow: Dead Riot appears to be based on a premise that the same sort of people who watch salacious Women-in-Prison films with shower scenes and predatory lesbian guards will also like zombies and gore and exploding body parts. It’s probably solid thinking from a marketing perspective, but the two elements here have rather clumsily been patched together. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on June 28th, 2015 at 1:34 pm. Updated on June 28th, 2015 at 1:34 pm.