Lock Up

Lock Up

Prison movies generally fall into one of two categories, one of which is the serious, gritty type of dramas that (if wishing to be good) contains at least a minimum of violence with maybe just a dash of social commentary. Films of this type include Midnight Express, Papillion, and the underrated Tom Selleck vehicle An Innocent Man. The other type of prison movie can be considered more as the ragtag, anything goes style of film with the guards and warden almost always playing the villains. The Longest Yard, The Great Escape and this 1989 release (among many others) fall easily into this category, but this particular film directed by career journeyman John Flynn is just so ridiculously over the top that the plot holes show themselves to be so big that any prisoner should be able to slip right through them on their way to freedom in the way that this film makes a complete and obvious mockery of the American correctional system. Reportedly the film went through much of its filming with pretty much no script as pages would arrive on the day of shooting for the actors to play out on camera and on days when no pages were delivered, cast and crew would sit around and bullshit with each other since there was nothing else to do. The film stars Sylvester Stallone towards the end of his amazing 1980s run, a run that was specifically amazing because of all the incredibly mindless, brain dead action flicks that he was cranking out nonstop, but this one might very well be the dumbest. Stallone’s character is shown at the beginning at what appears to be a mechanic’s garage that he owns, fooling around with his sweet girlfriend (Darlanne Fluegel) and even heading over to the playground to toss around a football with some random little kids. But all is not as tranquil as it seems as Stallone is really a convict enjoying a weekend pass on furlough due to a long history of good behavior within the system. Originally convicted on an aggravated assault charge against some kids who had robbed and beaten a good friend of his, he returns to his minimum security clubhouse in good spirits with the friendly guards and amiable fellow prisoners who all seem to get along with each other in perfect harmony. But it’s not going to stay that way as suddenly a cadre of rather unfriendly guards led by John Amos come into Stallone’s cell in the middle of the night to do a “routine transfer”, plucking Stallone from his happy little prison and driving him across the state to a maximum security hellhole. Stallone asks aloud why he was brought there and gets his answer when he sees the warden played by Donald Sutherland (who is given the hilariously draconian character name of Drumgoole). What’s the problem here? It seems that earlier in his sentence Stallone had been confined to another institution which Sutherland was the warden at and when Sutherland refused to grant him a pass to visit a dying friend on his deathbed (because “rules are rules”), Stallone not only escaped the prison in order to do just that, he also became the whistleblower on Sutherland’s inhumane treatment of other prisoners under his watch, a situation which we are told got blown up in the media embarrassing Sutherland and causing him to get reassigned to the shittiest prison in the state (but still keeping his job) but now, given the past, well documented history between he and Stallone, we’re asked to believe and swallow the idea that Sutherland has somehow manipulated the system (either that or he is somehow the sole arbiter of what happens within that system) to have Stallone transferred over to his current prison (complete with a rebuilt electric chair which he seems very proud of) for the sole purpose of REVENGE, telling Stallone at the outset that he is going to put him through Hell and that there is nothing that he can do about it (and even though we are told that the case was very well publicized, the film even features a scene where Fluegel’s girlfriend has a cordial meeting with Sutherland’s warden but yet clearly has no idea who he actually is). To help him carry out his nefarious (and pointless) plans for revenge, Sutherland has his own small army of corrupt guards who seem well aware of their boss’ motivations and are okay with it (except for Amos who is the head guard and appears to be in on it until the script starts having him show random signs of decency). But his biggest weapon is in the form of the fearsome Sonny Landham as the inmate yard boss who spends the whole movie either talking shit to Stallone or just giving him intensely dirty looks (with a young Danny Trejo firmly entrenched as one of his henchmen). But Stallone doesn’t care about that as he finds a home in the prison garage along with his own circle of friends that includes Frank McRae and (in his film debut that Stallone had recommended him for) Tom Sizemore who easily becomes the most annoying character in the film with his inane, nonstop chatter about nothing in particular. But as Sutherland plots away, Stallone and his newfound friends in the cage take pleasure in restoring an old, red vintage Ford Mustang with these scenes becoming so unbelievably cutesy that you almost halfway expect these guys to bust out singing and dancing to Greased Lightning. But Sutherland (who obviously knows that Stallone is not a hardened criminal but nonetheless talks about him as if he is in order to justify his actions against him to others) has a whole slew of torture and pain (both physical and psychological) to unleash on Stallone in order to prove just how lowly and unethical he can be in order to teach this guy a lesson. They include but are not limited to nearly gassing Stallone to death while having him deloused, dispatching Landham to bully him in the cafeteria while he’s eating, dispatching Landham and his cronies to smash and destroy the vintage car that they’ve been working on, dispatching Landham to literally murder one of Stallone’s friends so that Stallone might possibly kill Landham in return and increase his sentence and (in the film’s most ridiculous bit) convincing Stallone that he’s going to send somebody to actually rape his girlfriend on the outside which in turn would compel Stallone to make another escape attempt in order to protect her which would increase his sentence even more (and thus give Sutherland more time to enjoy torturing him before presumably killing him). At least the filmmakers had the good sense to conduct the filming at a real prison in New Jersey and to employ real prisoners as background extras (which was possibly a real life risk of danger for the main actors) using the prison yard as the setting for many key scenes including several fights and an overwrought football game sequence that tries unsuccessfully to evoke memories of The Longest Yard. Through it all Sutherland sits serenely in his crow’s nest office overlooking the place, lording over Stallone’s constant misfortunes and drinking it all in as his various underlings carry out his dirty work for him. Time and time again one wonders why the elaborate nature of Sutherland’s revenge plan (while he was certainly humiliated and shamed by Stallone previously) is really all that necessary (especially when Stallone only has six months to go on his sentence) when he himself still continues to have his job (and presumably his pension) thus showing that his career was certainly not ruined by what had happened in the past with the unknown X factor being just how exactly he had managed to pull the right strings to arrange Stallone’s transfer even though anybody else in the correctional system could have easily guessed his motivations (and the fact that none of the other legitimately violent criminals in the population seem to have any kind of a beef with him or vice versa is especially laughable). It’s a shame since Sutherland is a good enough actor (and had a sufficient enough career to be thought of as being a character acting legend) who could have made this into a VERY memorable villain, but he is sadly defeated by the flimsy script and woefully unrealistic situations (not that one would advocate it but there isn’t even a single reference to the real life exploitable concept of prisoner rape as a form of revenge here) and on top of the super corny camaraderie of Stallone and his pals in the prison mechanic shop (even spraying each other with red paint while happy music plays on the soundtrack), it all adds up to being one of the worst of the prison movie genre with way too much gloss choking out all the grittiness…

3/10

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