Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Doin’ Hard Time.  Hmmmm.  Is that the title of the movie, or is it referring to what the audience has to go through watching this flick?  HAHAHAHA!!!!  I’m sure that’s the first time that reference has been used to describe this little DTV horror.

You know how right before the movie starts they flash the MPAA rating and then in the side box tell why it’s rated as such?  Language, violence, sexual themes…  Well this one had violence and nudity in the little box next to its ‘R’ rating.  ‘Cool’ I thinks to meself, we’re gonna some titties in this one.   Uh, Chris, meself says to meself after about thirty minutes in... it’s a freakin’ prison movie.  Nary a tit to be found.  There was, however, a whole lot of man-ass on display though.  Man-ass in the shower, man-ass picking up soap, man-ass in the isolation tank… man-ass man-ass man-ass!  One must assume that writer, producer, director and editor Preston A. Whitmore II (not jr.) is big fan of man-ass.  Since Mr. Whitmore was in complete and total control of this film, It’s not like the producer could go to the director and say; ‘Hey, director, could you shoot a little less ass in this scene?’  Or the director could go to the editor and say; ‘Mr. editor, yeah, you can cut some of that man-ass there.’  Nope.  Preston likes man-ass.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  Dammit!  There IS something wrong that!  You could go to a Greek bathhouse and see less man-ass than what’s displayed in this movie.

Once you get past the lovingly photographed homage to man-ass, you’re stuck with the movie itself.  Boris Kodjoe is Micheal.  His seven your old son is shot to death by one of two gentlemen engaged in a street shoot-out.  Not that the boy deserved to die,

but he was chasing the shooters around with the new video camera his dad just brought him.  At the trial, since the police didn’t know who actually shot the boy, they both just got five years on a much lower charge.  Michael is angry.  So, he devises a cockamamie scheme do get into the prison and administer a little street justice.  The road he takes to get there is one of the most ridiculous plot devices ever developed in the history of movies, but if he doesn’t do that, then we wouldn’t have this tragic thing happen at the end of the movie.  Had to be a better way to get there from here Mr. Whitmore.

Thing is, this movie had a pretty decent cast and was reasonably well acted, but it ran at a snails pace, which may have made the man-ass scenes seem longer than they actually were.  The concept is pretty good at it’s core, but path to the plot quickly became disjointed and a lot of the scenes were poorly shot and lit.  It may have been the filmmakers may have been shooting for unique type of look, but they failed to achieve it.  Now trust me when I tell you that making a movie, any kind of movie, is HARD!  I’m sure that this thing didn’t turn out quite the way Preston Whitmore II (not jr.) wanted it to, but it still turned out really poor.  I don’t think I can give Mr. Whitmore a pass on the man-ass though, damn there was a lot man-ass in this thing.  I’m out.

 

 

Real Time Web
        Analytics