Lock Up (DVD)

I needed an easy to watch film last night and trawling through our extensive DVD collection we happened across Lock Up, an old Sylvester Stallone film. Frank Leone is serving time in a low risk (home visits at the weekend) prison and only has 6 months of his sentence left to serve. His weekends are spent with his soon to be wife and spending time in the garage he will own and start up when he gets out. But that all changes when a warden with a grudge transfers Leone into a prison whose idea of a treat at the weekend is one less beating to fight off. Faced with bent guards and violent, nothing to lose type criminals, Leone is in for a tough six ...

Lock Up is a tough prison drama starring Sylvester Stallone and Donald Sutherland. Stallone plays Frank Leone, a model prisoner with only 6 months left to serve of his sentence. Suddenly and seemingly for no apparent reason he finds himself transfered to a maximum security prison to serve out the rest of his sentence. All becomes clear when he is introduced to the new warden of the prison who instigated the transfer - the sadistic warden Drumgoole(Sutherland) from whose custody he had previously escape some years earlier. The problems for Leone start immediately when it becomes clear that the reason for his transfer is solely so that Drumgoole can push him over the edge ...

Sly makes good films every now and then. Bad films and very bad films. This however is one of his better ones. The story of an inmate, almost finished his time and then being transferred by an evil warden who wants revenge isn't that original but the story is well told and very well brought over. Sly does a good job, using his various sneers and grunts to express emotions but I think it wouldn't be anywhere near as good if it wasn't for Donald Sutherland, as always giving a stirling performance. How does he make you hate him so much? Anyway, you spend the whole film rooting for Sly, you get all the great, predictable plot developments, ...