I am seriously naive at times. I’d never appreciated the reach of these international crime bosses, who are so powerful that they can draft in eight murderers from prisons all around the world, have them fight against each other, award the winner his freedom and shoot all the losers, just so they can make large sums of money by gambling on the result, which they have pretty much fixed. Does the UN know about this? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on January 26th, 2011 at 5:24 pm. Updated on January 26th, 2011 at 5:24 pm.
“Do you believe in fate?” Terry Griff is asked. “No,” says the newly-released ex-prisoner, whose cards, quite frankly, have not been dealt kindly. “Nobody’s born to lose. It can go either way. Just depends which side of the fence you’re on.” But Terry’s on the wrong side of that fence 99% of the time. It’s a bit like fate, one suspects. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on January 22nd, 2011 at 5:14 pm. Updated on January 22nd, 2011 at 5:14 pm.
Now, I don’t play computer games but I imagine that this is pretty much what they are like: two cartoonishly muscled protagonists in 3D-animation-enhanced combat, with a rather flimsy plot to justify the fighting. But probably without the mushy ending. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on January 17th, 2011 at 9:45 pm. Updated on April 9th, 2011 at 5:57 pm.
“A little too full of the joy of life, eh?” says the sadistic Justice of the Peace, Squire Meadows, to a miserable female prisoner who has been charged with unruly conduct (to wit, singing in her cell). “We must curb that! No doubt five days of bread and water will tend to take the happiness out of your disposition!” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on January 15th, 2011 at 9:28 pm. Updated on January 15th, 2011 at 9:28 pm.
The opening scene of this movie has two naked men entwined in a prison bed, being woken by an early morning siren. Rouse! Rouse! One jumps up, hurriedly gets dressed in his Prison Officer uniform, and lets himself out of the cell. I think that it was at that point that the film lost me. Perhaps the officer’s supervisor, a colleague – someone – would have noticed that he’d gone missing for the entire night-shift… No? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on January 10th, 2011 at 9:42 pm. Updated on January 15th, 2011 at 9:30 pm.
A trans-Atlantic Scum, this is… based on that acclaimed British movie from 1979, and every bit as bleak. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on January 3rd, 2011 at 5:15 pm. Updated on January 3rd, 2011 at 5:18 pm.
“I really do admire how you change these girls’ lives,” says an opposition coach to Lt Cleveland Stackhouse, just after trying to get the prison team coached by Stackhouse banned from the schools’ track and field championships to which they’ve been invited. “You got it backwards,” replies Stackhouse. It’s that sort of movie; a bit soppy, corny.. but competent enough. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on January 3rd, 2011 at 9:42 am. Updated on March 25th, 2016 at 11:17 am.
It doesn’t bode well, does it, when a film needs a wacky long title to entice you to watch it. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on December 30th, 2010 at 8:57 pm. Updated on April 19th, 2020 at 11:38 am.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on December 28th, 2010 at 9:12 pm. Updated on January 27th, 2013 at 12:35 pm.
At the intersection of movies about undercover cops in prison [eg Behind Prison Gates (1939), White Heat (1949), Death Warrant (1990), Club Fed (1990), Half Past Dead (2002)], and action movies starring blokes with ponytails (eg just about anything with Steven Seagal) is this number. It might not be as far-fetched as some of those others, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on December 26th, 2010 at 10:44 pm. Updated on December 26th, 2010 at 10:49 pm.