Nor Chor (The Prisoners) tries to cram a lot into the one film. It attempts to provide a balanced view of prison issues, to draw attention to some inequities in the criminal justice system, to educate the masses about imprisonment… and to combine it with some high-action drama. They’re honourable goals to have. Well, maybe not the last when you try to blend it with the others. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on November 20th, 2011 at 6:21 pm. Updated on November 20th, 2011 at 6:21 pm.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on November 16th, 2011 at 9:55 pm. Updated on November 16th, 2011 at 9:55 pm.
There aren’t many prison movies like this one, where the action is seen from the point of view of a Prison Officer, or even where a humble correctional officer is at the centre of the story: The Quare Fellow (1962), Against the Wall (1993), Fast-Walking (1982), Cell 211 (2009) and not many more… Having said that, it seems unlikely that the British Prison Service will use this one as the centrepiece of its recruitment campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on November 7th, 2011 at 9:47 pm. Updated on November 7th, 2011 at 10:02 pm.
Having cringed through Men of San Quentin (1942), an unabashed tribute to Warden Clinton T Duffy, I prepared myself for an even greater festival of self-aggrandisement in this flick – particularly as this one was based on the Warden’s own reflections and released just two years following his retirement after 12-odd years in the job. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 30th, 2011 at 6:35 pm. Updated on October 30th, 2011 at 6:35 pm.
OK. So it’s a tad unlikely (even if, in a case of life almost imitating art, a similar rehab program was introduced in a Canadian prison not so long after Chaindance was released). But perhaps its implausibility shouldn’t matter. Trouble is, it does. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 27th, 2011 at 9:31 pm. Updated on August 4th, 2013 at 10:54 pm.
“Just land in jail and people will look at you. They’ll say, ‘Don’t pity them; they got what they deserved.’ Nobody can imagine what it’s like to be in jail. I, too, forget when I leave. Yet I return. I return.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 15th, 2011 at 9:15 pm. Updated on October 15th, 2011 at 9:15 pm.
Dark Love gives us a compelling portrait of the intertwining lives of two young people in Naples; one from a working class family, the other from a privileged background. One a perpetrator of a repugnant crime, the other his victim. Both are stupefied by the event that links them. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 10th, 2011 at 9:18 pm. Updated on October 10th, 2011 at 9:18 pm.
This is my sort of prison movie; the Real McCoy. A movie about prison as much as it is about the lives and stories of the characters who inhabit it. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 10th, 2011 at 9:00 pm. Updated on July 2nd, 2012 at 8:31 pm.
I know that it must have been really tempting to cash in on the success of Penitentiary (1979), but I’m still not sure what possessed Jamaa Fanaka to make this ludicrous sequel. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 2nd, 2011 at 9:39 pm. Updated on March 7th, 2016 at 11:09 am.
If you think you could have seen this movie before, you’re probably right. Even if you haven’t. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 28th, 2011 at 7:24 pm. Updated on September 28th, 2011 at 9:52 pm.