Prison stuff. In prison movies.
This is an old-fashioned tear-jerker, under the guise of a film with something important to say about prisoners’ capacity to change, amongst other things. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:34 pm. Updated on April 25th, 2020 at 5:42 pm.
There’s much to like in this horror film which dips its lid to the 1960 French prison classic Le Trou. Like Le Trou, almost all of the action takes place in a shared prison cell, and the strength of the film is in the characterisations, the complex relationships between the cell-mates, and its unhurried pace which matches the ordinariness of the prison routine. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:32 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
First written by Miguel Piñero as a play while he was a prisoner in Sing Sing, and then shot in ‘The Tombs’ – the Men’s House of Detention in Manhattan, it’s not surprising that this has an authentic feel to it. Piñero also played a minor character in the movie, but missed its premiere as he was back inside on an armed robbery charge. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:27 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
One of the better 30s prison films, thanks to fine performances from Jimmy Cagney and George Raft. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:24 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
Also known as The Concrete Jungle. Advertised when it was released as ‘The Toughest Movie Ever Made in Britain’, this is part underworld movie and part prison movie. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:20 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
Yes, that’s right; ‘Nu zi jian yu’ becomes ‘Women Prison’… and that sets the standard for the sub-titling throughout. It’s an entertaining prison movie for traditionalists: a fight for top dog, a naïve first-timer, a brutal, corrupt officer, an escape, some sexual assaults, and even a disturbance that requires the use of tear gas. Not unlike the 1987 Hong Kong film about a male prison, Prison on Fire, in some ways. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:16 pm. Updated on February 23rd, 2013 at 10:14 pm.
23 year old Sean Penn plays a Chicago schoolboy Mick O’Brien, who has a long rap sheet and ultimately gets sent to a juvenile institution for driving his car into (and killing) the 8-year-old brother of his arch enemy in the schoolyard, Paco Moreno. At the time, he was being pursued by Police from the scene of a crime where he and a mate were all balaclava’d up, ready to rip off Paco’s gang’s drug stash, before another gang started shooting and people got killed. You get the picture; they’re young, but bad dudes. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:09 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
When the notes accompanying (and presumably promoting) the DVD include a review which concludes with the line, “While I wouldn’t recommend you to go too far to see it, it is nevertheless worth seeing”, one’s hopes aren’t lifted too high. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:03 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
Based on the true story of John McVicar, played surprisingly well by Roger Daltrey from The Who. McVicar, an armed robber who graduated from university while in prison and became a journalist upon his release, escaped from the high security E Wing at Durham Prison in 1968, and while other parts of the film are fictionalised, the escape is supposedly not. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:00 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
Based on the true story of Billy Hayes, an American caught smuggling a couple of kilos of hashish in Turkey in 1970, this is the quintessential cautionary tale against drug trafficking in a foreign country. Unfortunately, it is marred by a large dose of xenophobia. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 2:57 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.