In my defence, let me say this: I’ve not been able to track down another Indonesian prison movie, and although I have a policy of avoiding exploitative women-in-prison movies, I was sure this would be different. It’s Indonesian, for goodness’ sake. I was wrong. There are skimpily dressed women, catfights, various instruments of torture and even a shower scene. (Mind you, the women remain pretty much clothed throughout). It’s so bad, one starts to ponder whether it would be better to be subjected to the instruments of torture than have to endure the rest of the film. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:16 pm. Updated on August 11th, 2013 at 12:06 pm.
This is a story about a nice, law-abiding woman who gets herself sent to prison in order to gather information which she hopes will save her brother from being executed. Brave, but not as brave as you’d imagine. This is the most benign prison you will ever see – and one which finally debunks all those movies which depict prisons as unpleasant places populated by unpleasant people. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 27th, 2009 at 6:44 pm. Updated on October 6th, 2009 at 8:11 pm.
Lee Umstetter (Nick Nolte) is serving life without the prospect of parole. He throws himself off what looks like the fourth tier of his San Quentin cellblock, but somehow manages to sustain only a couple of broken arms. He tries to hang himself, but wakes his cellmate by thrashing around. Not good at crime, not good at killing himself. When he asks the librarian for the biggest book he has, you think he’s going to try jumping off it head first, or to weigh himself down as he tries to drown himself. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 26th, 2009 at 9:14 pm. Updated on November 20th, 2015 at 7:28 pm.
There’s a slight edginess to Stefania’s story which sets it apart, but not very far apart, from your traditional 1930s prison melodrama. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 25th, 2009 at 10:29 pm. Updated on September 25th, 2009 at 10:44 pm.
Correctional Officer Dan Cappelli (James Russo) embarks on a sexual relationship with a prisoner, then helps her escape, and is later involved in a gun fight in which she dies. “It’s strange, ” he says. “I never got to know her. Still, I will never forget her.” But then, Dan, you’ve got a memory like an elephant! Most of us struggle to remember our own names, let alone women who’ve seduced us, dragged us into lives of crime and forced us to live as fugitives! Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 19th, 2009 at 7:10 pm. Updated on September 27th, 2009 at 7:07 pm.
A remake of 20,000 Years in Sing Sing just eight years after that film’s release. Why? You might well ask. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 13th, 2009 at 8:11 pm. Updated on September 14th, 2009 at 8:35 pm.
It’s Québec, 1952. A Bishop is called to a prison to hear the confession of a dying prisoner, Simon. It’s someone the Bishop knew way back in 1912, when they were both teenagers. Once in the confessional, he gets locked in and forced to watch a re-enactment of the events leading up to Simon’s imprisonment forty years earlier. We realise then that Simon (it helps if you pronounce it in the French manner, See-mon), is less interested in making his confession than in hearing one. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 13th, 2009 at 12:31 am. Updated on October 12th, 2009 at 8:38 pm.
Convicts 4 what, exactly? Better scripts, perhaps. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 12th, 2009 at 1:06 am. Updated on September 12th, 2009 at 2:09 pm.
A film with a very strange moral centre. A young entrepreneur, Breckel, bribes prison bosses from around the world to give up their toughest Death Row inmates so that he can put ten of them (including two women) on an island and have them fight to the death, live in front of a paying internet audience. Well.. they were going to die anyway. When one of the women is raped on camera and another bloke is tortured before being killed, Breckel’s girlfriend and his chief technician start having misgivings and want to pull the plug on the more graphic bits. Like, they had no qualms about the concept of making a huge profit out of men and women killing each other on film, but this graphic violence is just plain wrong! Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 5th, 2009 at 11:17 pm. Updated on February 11th, 2010 at 9:00 pm.
Crime lord Yves Perret (Jack Palance) is aggrieved at the success that unorthodox cops Ray Tango (Sylvester Stallone) and Gabriel Cash (Kurt Russell) have had in busting his drugs and arms dealing operations. He hatches an evil plan. Rather than have them knocked (which would clearly be the easiest option), he wants them framed, tried, jailed, and then killed in jail. Make sense? As much as the rest of the movie… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 30th, 2009 at 9:24 am. Updated on April 18th, 2020 at 1:21 pm.