The final credits contain the normal disclaimer about the events depicted being fictitious and not representing any actual persons, living or dead. Really, in a story about a young man who takes on the job of executioner at the jail in which his brother is on Death Row, and who falls in love with (and then impregnates) his brother’s ex-girlfriend who is also on Death Row, it’s a bit unnecessary. One would hope. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 19th, 2010 at 10:25 pm. Updated on August 19th, 2010 at 10:25 pm.
It’s a different time. The film’s opening sequence shows a trustee prisoner in a prison car collecting a young girl from a bus stop in the middle of the night. He takes her to the home of the Cragmoor State Prison Warden, where he and his wife console her. It transpires that she is the girlfriend of a young man awaiting execution for the murder of a gangsterish politician. Fair enough; I’m sure lots of Wardens put their prisons’ and their own resources at the disposal of Death Row inmates’ families. No blurred boundaries there that I can see. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 7th, 2010 at 6:40 pm. Updated on August 7th, 2010 at 6:40 pm.
When people talk about prison movies or the prison movie genre, I don’t think they have this film in mind. It’s a film about a political prisoner being sustained through four years of harsh imprisonment by her Christian faith, and how the strength of that faith changed others. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 pm. Updated on August 24th, 2010 at 8:16 pm.
As the bound hero Ji Kang Hyuk (Lee Sung Jai) is dangled upside-down above a bucket of water and beaten, you could be forgiven for thinking that the title of this movie is an irony-laden reference to prison conditions in Korea. You don’t expect it to be the title of the Bee Gees’ song which he asks to play as he martyrs himself to the causes of equal justice for all and bringing about an end to harsh, unjust sentences. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 31st, 2010 at 10:45 pm. Updated on August 1st, 2010 at 11:15 pm.
Literally Jail Meat, I think. And yet another film that promised English subtitles, only to let me down. On the plus side, you do get to see massed prisoners dressed up as something like ice-cream vendors, and when they line up against vertical bars they become chameleon-like. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 31st, 2010 at 10:43 pm. Updated on July 31st, 2010 at 10:43 pm.
In a slight variation to the time-honoured story of the innocent man or woman in prison, this movie explores a parallel form of injustice – the sentencing of minor players in big drug busts to crushing terms of imprisonment under US federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 24th, 2010 at 11:49 pm. Updated on August 2nd, 2010 at 9:28 pm.
The first half hour of this movie is taken up establishing that Martin Stang (John Hargreaves) is an armed robber and a likable rogue who knows his way around (a) dirty money, (b) clean women, and (c) the New South Wales Police (more dirty than clean). That done, the remainder of the film is able to be devoted to his great con job – convincing the court and the prison authorities that he’s blind and no longer a threat to society.
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Posted on July 18th, 2010 at 10:37 pm. Updated on July 20th, 2010 at 8:57 pm.
Frank ‘Fast-Walking’ Miniver (James Woods) is a bent, dissolute, dope-smoking, work-avoiding guard who regards his job and his bosses with contempt. In his spare time he helps run a couple of whores out of his cousin’s general store, and just about everything he does is corrupt in one or more senses of the word. But in this grimy, dispiriting film, that doesn’t set him much apart from anyone else. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 10th, 2010 at 11:30 pm. Updated on July 10th, 2010 at 11:34 pm.
Diana Dors. Prison movie. They don’t seem to go together naturally, do they? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 9th, 2010 at 10:06 pm. Updated on July 10th, 2010 at 6:59 pm.
It’s bit surprising that there aren’t more prison boot camp movies, given the potential (brutally exploited in movies like Full Metal Jacket) to show tough men being bullied, abused and humiliated. That potential really is within easy grasp of the prison movie genre. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 4th, 2010 at 3:05 pm. Updated on December 2nd, 2011 at 8:29 pm.