The Number is based on Jonny Steinberg’s non-fiction book of the same name, based in turn on interviews with Magadien Wentzel, a former high-ranking 28s gang member who served time in the Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Both inside and outside jail, Wentzel has, it seems, so far defied the gang’s dictum that the only way out is through death. The film sheds light on the mysterious workings of the brutal, ritualistic, militaristic prison gangs in South Africa which maintain their traditions of well over a hundred years… and from which Magadien decides to walk away rather than see his son follow the same path. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on November 23rd, 2019 at 8:27 pm. Updated on November 23rd, 2019 at 8:27 pm.
Several years ago I copped some mild abuse after suggesting that Billy Hayes, the hero of Midnight Express (1978) – a film that shares more than a few things in common with this one – might have got off lightly by escaping so soon into his sentence for smuggling a large quantity of hashish. It’s the same moral dilemma here; addict Dwight Worker (Timothy Bottoms) is caught smuggling cocaine at Mexico City’s airport in 1973, and yet two years into a seven-year sentence we catch ourselves cheering him on in his audacious bid to escape from the notorious Lecumberri Prison. Both films retell true life stories. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on November 17th, 2019 at 8:27 pm. Updated on November 17th, 2019 at 8:27 pm.
“Look, I sure wasn’t the first to admit it. But there are things that you and the other women officers can do in a prison that a man can’t do. They look at a man in this uniform and their gut response is that it’s the enemy. They look at a woman in this uniform and their gut response is it’s still a woman. That’s what women can do for a prison.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on November 8th, 2019 at 7:21 pm. Updated on November 8th, 2019 at 7:21 pm.
Wild gunslingin’ west meets duck soup prison escape. It’s an odd recipe. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on November 2nd, 2019 at 1:38 pm. Updated on November 2nd, 2019 at 1:38 pm.
O.G. is not quite OMG!; it’s too quietly intense, too much of a slow-burn. But it’s an outstanding prison movie. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 27th, 2019 at 11:24 am. Updated on June 21st, 2020 at 5:25 pm.
In November 1986 US President Ronald Reagan conceded that his government had secretly sold weapons to Iran through Israel, despite an arms embargo, claiming that it was an attempt to secure the release of seven US citizens being held hostage in Lebanon. Some of the proceeds from the arms deal with Iran had been covertly diverted to the right-wing Contras rebels seeking to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Reagan had not always been so supportive of money laundering; once he smashed money rings.
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Posted on October 20th, 2019 at 10:05 am. Updated on October 20th, 2019 at 10:05 am.
“Disgraced Navy SEAL Rick Tyler is sentenced to rot in a maximum security military prison until he is offered the opportunity to put his life on the line and win his freedom in a kill or be killed Reality TV show” is how this is marketed, often under its alternative title, Elimination Game. Once the action starts we see an image of the Neo-Alcatraz Military Prison to which Tyler had three years earlier been sentenced to rot (for life plus 1,000 years), but that’s it. No other prison bits. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 15th, 2019 at 8:29 pm. Updated on October 15th, 2019 at 8:41 pm.
Man of Will retells the real-life story of nationalist hero Kim Chang-Soo, who much later, as Kim Koo, became the sixth and last Premier of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. But the film doesn’t bother with any of the irrelevant stuff, concentrating instead on what was really important: the two years he spent in jail. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 7th, 2019 at 8:40 pm. Updated on October 7th, 2019 at 8:40 pm.
Set against the backdrop of the growing Solidarity movement in the early 1980s, this film tells a simple story: an autsajder (outsider) inside. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 1st, 2019 at 9:59 pm. Updated on October 1st, 2019 at 9:59 pm.
Revenger is an action movie. A fight movie, to be more precise, co-written by the main fighter to showcase his martial-arts skills, not his acting ability. Don’t expect much else. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 21st, 2019 at 10:06 pm. Updated on September 21st, 2019 at 10:06 pm.