![]() ![]() Director Flynn does OK, I wouldn't call it particularly stylish & he gets the pacing slightly wrong but it looks nice enough if not spectacular. The mix between action & sentimental male bonding isn't quite right & focuses a little too much on the later but as I said I still liked it although if pushed I'd find it hard to unreservedly recommend, I think maybe Lock Up is an acquired taste. I quite liked the story no matter how improbable it was, I liked the character's although they do seem to come & go a little to easily & it kept me quiet for a couple of hours. This isn't a typical Stallone action vehicle & while it does have a few action sequences in it their thin on the ground & consist of fights rather than huge budget set-pieces. The script by Richard Smith, Jeb Stewart & Henry Rosenbaum takes itself pretty seriously & some of the sloppy sentiment can make sitting through his a chore especially the prolonged scene when Stallone & his convict friends repair an old car. Directed by John Flynn I didn't think Lock Up was brilliant but at the same time I didn't think it was too bad either. Having Leone transfered with a mere six months of his sentence remaining Drumgoole has to provoke him into another escape or some misdemeanour so he can increase his sentence & using his unsympathetic guards torture him & make the rest of his life a living hell. Several years prior Drumgoole refused to let Leone out to visit his dying friend so Leone escaped & went to the press about his treatment at the hands of Drumgoole, he was left to rot in charge of Gateway while Leone was put in the cushy Norwood which Drumgoole still feels a certain amount of bitterness about. Lock Up starts as model prisoner Frank Leone (Sylvester Stallone) is transfered from the nice minimum security prison Norwood to the maximum security hell-hole that is Gateway run by sadistic bent warden Drumgoole (Donald Sutherland) who has a personal axe to grind against Leone. ![]() No awards here for sure, but when I watch a film about a man played by Sly Stallone in prison then I think I know what to expect, and it delivers all that I hoped for, so hooray for the beefcake I say. Donald Sutherland does overplay it to the point that he goes beyond pantomime villain, it's a real teeth itching performance that he would only outdo with the dreadful Jamie Lee Curtis starrer, Virus, 10 years later, but in a film with such primal fun/action intentions, it doesn't ruin the film and leaves it all told as a fine genre piece. So it's something of a surprise to me that the best actor on show is actually the film's weak link. ![]() The supporting players are a mixed bunch, this is Tom Sizemore's first motion picture and he does really well with the character of Dallas, Sonny Landham is his usual scary menacing self, whilst Frank McRae as Eclipse does just enough right to make his mark. He garners our sympathy quite quickly, and considering the bloke is built like the proverbial brick outhouse, it's quite an achievement. There certainly is nothing here that hasn't been done before in the prison film genre, and only an idiot would expect anything other than the ending we get, but this is a Stallone movie and it's full of guts, testo macho action, and it should be noted that Sly here puts some depth to the character of Leone. He also enlists the help of resident inmate beefcake Chink Weber (Sonny Landham), and they all in turn try to break Leone at all costs to ensure that he never leaves prison again. We then follow Leone as he is pushed to the limits by crazy warden Drumgoole (Donald Sutherland) and all the sadistic guards under his command. During the night he is whisked away to a maximum security prison on the orders of a sadistic warden out for revenge because Leone was the only man to have ever escaped from his prison, thus setting in motion the wheels of revenge. Have to say right off that I can't believe the low rating for this one here, because it delivers everything that a Stallone fan would want, if one is loading this into the player then surely they know what to expect? Frank Leone (Sylvester Stallone) only has a few weeks to go before being released from prison, he is no hard core offender, he is a loving man and is ready for a new life with his gorgeous girlfriend Melissa (Darlanne Fluegel). ![]()
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