Prison Films

Escape From Alcatraz

One of Clint Eastwood's two most important filmmaking mentors was Don Siegel (the other was Sergio Leone), who directed Eastwood in Dirty Harry, Coogan's Bluff, Two Mules for Sister Sara, and this enigmatic, 1979 drama based on a true story about an escape from the island prison of Alcatraz. Eastwood plays a new convict who enters into a kind of mind game with the chilly warden (Patrick McGoohan) and organizes a break leading into the treacherous waters off San Francisco. As jailbird movies go, this isn't just a grotty, unpleasant experience but a character-driven work with some haunting twists. --Tom Keogh

Filmed on location on Alcatraz Island, this is an account of the only three men ever to escape from this maximum security prison.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG
Release Date: 28-MAR-2006
Media Type: DVD

Riki-Oh - The Story of Ricky

A young man with superhuman strength is incarcerated at a prison run by corrupt officials and seeks to use his martial arts to clean up the system. The story is set in the year of 2001 in a prison owned by a major company. A new prisoner sees his friends being harassed and killed by the guards and seeks his revenge.System Requirements:Run Time: 90 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ANIMATION/ADULT SWIM Rating: R UPC: 631595008623 Manufacturer No: TSDVD-0086

One of the most absurdly violent films ever made, this outrageous comic book of a movie is short on style but makes up for it in sheer audacity and excess. Brooding street kid Ricky Ho (Fan Siu Wang, playing the part of avenging angel with self-righteous earnestness) walks into the corrupt corporate prison system with superpowered martial arts skills and proceeds to punch his way through every bullying thug and sadistic guard who comes his way. Literally. His fist puts a gaping hole through the stomach of a giant sumo-wrestler-sized thug and the jaw of a pompadoured bully, and turns the skull of a pathetic guard into a bloody stump. As Ricky becomes a hero to the downtrodden prisoners, the assistant warden (who keeps breath mints in his removable glass eye) organizes the dreaded "gang of four," the cell block gang leaders, to take Ricky down. Fat chance!

There's nothing realistic about the bone-shattering, blood-splattering spectacle of crushed heads and snapped limbs, but the unrestrained display becomes so preposterously grotesque it hardly matters. You'll be convinced that the "Oh" in Riki-Oh stands for "Oh my God, did I really see that?" Yes, Ricky really does tie a sliced tendon with his teeth, a thug cuts open his gut and uses his own intestines to strangle Ricky, and the warden (for no apparent reason) puffs himself up into a giant rubber ogre. Ricky's curvy, feminine nemesis Rogan is played by Yukari Oshima, the butt-kicking, all-woman star of Angel and others. --Sean Axmaker

No Escape

From the director of Goldeneye. The year is 2022 . A former marine captain has been sentenced to life on a remote island prison where the most violent and feared criminals have been secured. There is no escape ... or is there?

Black Mama, White Mama

Pam Grier in a women-in-prison movie? Why did no one think of this sooner? OK, they did. Several times. But this one is different. Black Mama, White Mama is a bizarre update of The Defiant Ones with a little Cool Hand Luke and Chained Heat thrown in for good measure. Grier stars as Lee Daniels, a pimp-and-drug-lord's moll who's looking for a way to escape both prison and her thug boyfriend. The dynamic Margaret Markov ably backs her as rich-girl-turned-revolutionary Karen Brent. The two meet in the friendliest Third World prison ever (Tickling games in the shower! What girlish fun!), and before you can say catfight they're chained together at the wrist. A quick prison break later, our feisty ladies are being chased all over the undefined tropical island by the police, revolutionaries, and dueling pimps. Director Jonathan Demme shares the story credit for this one, and his craftsmanship shows--Black Mama, White Mama hits every mandatory facet of the genre, including butt kicking, gunfire, an Evil Lesbian Prison Guard, gratuitously scanty clothing, and dressing up as nuns. Absolutely not to be missed. --Ali Davis

"A genre all by herself" (Voice), Pam Grier tacklesand shacklesher sleekest role yet as the feistier half of a pair of women in chains and on the run in this "colorful, outrageous and truly exciting" action flick (The Hollywood Reporter)! Grier is Lee Daniels, a prostitute doing hard time in an island prison camp for women where the guards have a new way to punish inmates who fight: by cuffing 'em together! Chained to her bitter rival, white revolutionary Karen (Margaret Markov), Lee finds herself literally linked to the revolutionary causeand on the flywhenKaren's guerrilla friends stage a coup! But this foxy inmate's got a cause of her own in the form of a secret stash of cold, hard cash and a getaway boat! Brawling with her white counterpart over which way to go, and tracked like a dog by guards, guerrillas and a gangster after the loot, she's gotta make her escapebefore both mamas' enemies bring them down for good!

Death Warrant

Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as maverick cop Lou Burke, the only lawman tough enough to go undercover in a prison recently plagued by suspicious deaths. Posing as a hardened con, Burke stands up to sadistic guards and makes martial arts mincemeat out of brutal inmates, all the while investigating those mysterious murders. Following the standard Van Damme formula at the height of the actor's B-picture popularity, the script essentially inserts him in a series of increasingly nasty situations from which he then has to kick, punch, and chop his way out. For services rendered, the Muscles from Brussels gets to kiss Cynthia Gibb, who plays a lawyer assigned the dubious task of posing as Burke's wife. With Van Damme safely tucked into his story formula, a slightly more discriminating viewer can find pleasure in a supporting performance from Robert Guillaume (as an aging inmate), while freakier types will enjoy top-drawer nemesis the Sandman (Patrick Killpatrick), a psycho killing machine who forces poor Burke to break a sweat. --Tom Keogh

Jean-Claude Van Damme faces his biggest challenge yet: a maximum-security prison! The internationalsuperstar spin-kicks his way through this action-adventure powerhouse that explodes with death-defying stunts and nonstop martial-arts wizardry. Filled with the same power, intensity and skill of itsunstoppable hero, Death Warrant is your ticket to a Van Damme good time! Van Damme is Officer Louis Burke, a roguish police detective who goes undercover to investigate a series of inmate murders at Harrison Penitentiary. Posing as a prisoner, Burke encounters brutal inmates, corrupt guards, death and betrayal at every turn. But when he unearths the shocking secret behind the penitentiary's inner workings, Burke must attempt a daring escape that pits him against not only hundreds of murderous inmates...but also a deadly enemy from his own past.

Chained Heat 2

Deep inside the concrete jungle of an infamous communist block prison one innocent woman struggles to stay alive amid sadistic heroin-smuggling guards and a psychotic stiletto-heeled warden. Voluptuous Brigitte Nielsen ("The Surreal Life" "Strange Love" Rocky IV) stars as the masterful mistress of a women's prison where the most contemptible crimes are committed after they put you away for life.Running Time: 99 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 794043841125

Jackson County Jail

Yvette Mimieux is an East Coast professional who tires of life in Hollywood and decides to drive cross-country back to New York, until a carjacking on a rural highway plunges her into the worst night of her life. She's pawed by a sleazy bar owner, jailed next to cold killer Tommy Lee Jones, and raped by a lascivious slob of a jailer. When the sloppy good-ol'-boy cop reaches out to her in belated shame, his touch sends her into a panicked attack and she beats the life out of him until Jones drags her from the jail in an impromptu escape. On the surface this mix of Southern-fried cars-and-guns adventure and woman-in-peril thriller might look like pure exploitation. Director Michael Miller certainly shows a flair for wild car chases and pitched gunplay, but he also shows an unexpected sensitive hand in the seamier elements of the film. Mimieux is no shrinking victim; she carves out a strong, assured character slowly stripped of her dignity, and her shock and emotional hysteria during and following the attack is piercing. Tommy Lee Jones, in his first leading role, shows his star potential in a relaxed and confident performance as a terse career crook on the run from a murder rap. Almost philosophical about his way of life ("I was born dead," he tosses off before making a run for it), he is at once clear-eyed, candid, and the most tender character in the film. --Sean Axmaker

Jackie Chan Is the Prisoner

Though Jackie Chan is billed as the star of The Prisoner, he's actually part of a stellar ensemble cast including Sammo Hung (Dragons Forever, TV's Martial Law), Andy Lau (Saviour of the Soul), and Tony Leung Ka-fai (The Lover). Leung plays a cop who goes undercover in a prison to dig out corruption; Hung is a roustabout prisoner who keeps breaking out to see his son; Chan plays a pool shark who accidentally kills a gambler; and Lau is that gambler's mob boss brother who's sworn to kill Chan. They all end up in the same prison, resulting in a complex, engrossing, and sometimes brutal story--think of it as the Hong Kong version of HBO's Oz. Which is not to say it isn't full of the bizarre narrative shifts that make Hong Kong movies such a perverse pleasure: Chan got into a fight with this gambler because he was trying to raise money to buy his dying girlfriend a black-market liver; at one point, Hung escapes and takes his son to the park, where they buy cotton candy and have some quality time; and at the end the whole movie takes a bizarre lurch into John Woo-style gunplay spectacle. This isn't a criticism--this crazy quilt of emotional tones and genres adds to the movie's entertainment value without detracting from the emotional power of some gripping scenes of prison conflict. For new Jackie Chan fans who've seen his American movies and want to learn more about why he's one of the biggest stars in the world, this is probably not the right place to start; but for anyone looking to experience more of one of the world's most exuberant and engaging bodies of cinema, The Prisoner offers jolting fights and hairpin twists and turns. --Bret Fetzer

Bloodsport 4: The Dark Kumite

Jackson County Jail

Yvette Mimieux is an East Coast professional who tires of life in Hollywood and decides to drive cross-country back to New York, until a carjacking on a rural highway plunges her into the worst night of her life. She's pawed by a sleazy bar owner, jailed next to cold killer Tommy Lee Jones, and raped by a lascivious slob of a jailer. When the sloppy good-ol'-boy cop reaches out to her in belated shame, his touch sends her into a panicked attack and she beats the life out of him until Jones drags her from the jail in an impromptu escape. On the surface this mix of Southern-fried cars-and-guns adventure and woman-in-peril thriller might look like pure exploitation. Director Michael Miller certainly shows a flair for wild car chases and pitched gunplay, but he also shows an unexpected sensitive hand in the seamier elements of the film. Mimieux is no shrinking victim; she carves out a strong, assured character slowly stripped of her dignity, and her shock and emotional hysteria during and following the attack is piercing. Tommy Lee Jones, in his first leading role, shows his star potential in a relaxed and confident performance as a terse career crook on the run from a murder rap. Almost philosophical about his way of life ("I was born dead," he tosses off before making a run for it), he is at once clear-eyed, candid, and the most tender character in the film. --Sean Axmaker

"This movie stars the young Tommy Lee Jones in the kind of role that is his hallmark. In this controversial and action-packed story, Tommy Lee Jones plays an outlaw on the run with more integrity and certainly more 'cool' than the society that condemned him. His is so unnervingly convincing and commanding that it doesn't even seem to be a performance." -- Roger Corman~~~Used, abused, and accused of a crime she didn't commit, a woman (Yvette Mimieux) breaks out of jail and goes on the run with a fellow prisoner (Tommy Lee Jones).~~~