Reviewed By
Ryan McDonald

Analysis
Been a while, hasn’t it?…Anyway, I’ve recently done an assignment at University using this film, so if I use words like ‘Panopticon’ and ‘surveillance’ ad nauseum, please forgive me. That’s right folks, it’s a Christopher Lambert film with at least half a brain in its head. Who would’ve thunk it, eh? Oh, it’s not Shakespeare, but it’s better than most of his films, primarily due to the unique touches by genre veteran director Stuart “Re-Animator” Gordon, and an uneven but sometimes effective B-cast.

The screenplay for this film comes up with a lot of really interesting ideas such as the idea of a Big Brother-style prison itself, the film really does have some interesting ideas on the notions of surveillance, privacy, punishment, and conformity. In addition to the slimy Warden Poe (played by the robotic Kurtwood Smith, in perhaps the best casting of his career, though he was surprisingly lively in “Robocop”) who works for the company that oversees the Fortress (the Government hands over control to corporations), but is also a product of it (I won’t spoil it for you, but my above statement about Mr. Smith should give you a clue), we also have a hi-tech computer/security camera known as Zed-10 that tracks every prisoner‘s thought and action and of course can dish out punishment (and thus is far more efficient than the average prison guard). Unfortunately, a lot of these ideas are brought up without a lot being done with them. For instance, we know that there is a one-child per couple policy- why? Furthermore, these ideas are used in an otherwise pretty stock-standard prison escape plot, although a lot of the prison clichés are given interesting, sometimes amusing futuristic spins, it must be said (You really don‘t want to end up in solitary in this prison, I can tell you).

The film’s sense of humour is easily it’s most impressive attribute, the scene where a prisoner’s dreams are monitored by Zed (and Warden Poe) is pretty funny in a sophomoric kind of way. The humour also extends to the cast and characters themselves. The always terrific and quirky Jeffrey Combs has a wonderful supporting role that is a spin on the standard nerdy prisoner character you always see in these films (think Angus Lennie in “The Great Escape“ or Dustin Hoffman in “Papillon“). He plays a seriously myopic prisoner named D-Day, who was an explosives expert on the outside who helped blow up a bank, but was turned in by his buddies because he blew up the money! Tom Towles and Vernon Wells- whom I absolutely loved in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s underrated “Commando”- play the resident bullies, but even they are drawn in a different way from the usual. Towles’ character starts out as terribly sadistic, even threatening to rape the resident young Hispanic prisoner (although not a comedy by any means, the film is so light-hearted and harmless- Intestinators aside, of course- that I failed to even notice this element. Mind you, I was 13 at the time and my attention span was close to that of a gnat), but eventually he turns around and wants to join the escape…but he’s still a total a-hole, and Towles is absolutely hilarious in the role. Wells, whom I initially didn’t recognise, plays a thuggish pal of Towles with 187 (Murder statute) on his forehead, and both he and Lambert engage in that most arcane of prison clichés, the violent prison brawl, overseen by Warden Poe, of course, but once again, everything is turned up a notch, all I can say is it’s gonna end up pretty messy.

And, speaking of messy, you gotta love those Intestinators, right?. These are particularly nasty little devices that leave you with no question as to which demented genius is behind this film. Each prisoner is implanted with a tracking device in their bodies that can cause intense intestinal pain when a violation of the prison’s rules is made, and in the most severe cases…well, you just have to see for yourself. Not that the gore is on the level of “Re-Animator”, though. The FX are very well done, and in fact the whole film looks great when you consider it was not made on the largest of budgets.

Some of the acting is admittedly adequate at best. Lambert has never been a great actor, or a particularly good one even, he’s OK at best, as John Brennick, and gets the job done in perhaps his best film (I haven‘t seen “Highlander“ in years, and the only other one I liked was “Knight Moves“- I’m sure you remember that one, the murder mystery you‘d have to be friggin‘ Nostradamus to solve). Loryn Locklyn, who admittedly has a less interesting and less demanding role, fares less well as Lambert’s pregnant wife. She exudes absolutely zero charisma and her acting ability would be barely enough to get her a walk-on on the abysmal soap “Passions”.

Key Area	Rating (out of 5)	Comment
Action		Not wall-to-wall, but there’s a brutal and prolonged fist fight, and the climax features much gunfire and mayhem.
Tension		The fact that any prisoner can be ‘intestinated’ at any given time creates some tension, but c’mon, we know Lambert’s gonna come out OK here, even after being ‘mind-wiped’.
Violence/ Gore		Perhaps not as violent as Gordon’s earlier work, but there are exploding stomachs, huge gun-shot wounds to the stomach, and much gunfire.
Bare Flesh		The male prisoners including Lambert expose their buttocks (and perhaps brief flashes of something else, sorry I wasn’t terribly interested in looking). Despite cameras being in the women’s showers, all us guys (and lesbians) get is a dream sequence featuring female breast exposure, unfortunately it is seen through a heavily pixelated screen that allows for very little clarity.
Plot		Gordon gives us the standard prison escape situation and clichés but puts his own violent, futuristic, and tongue-in-cheek spin on things.

Verdict Proof that not every Christopher Lambert film after “Highlander” stinks and also proof that Stuart Gordon can work rather well outside the horror genre. A sometimes intriguing, exciting, funny, and quite gory sci-fi action pic for fans of this sort of thing. Quite underrated.

Movie Pictures (Click picture to enlarge)