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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	1989
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	John Flynn
Genre:	Prison actioner
Starring:	Sylvester Stallone, Donald Sutherland, Tom Sizemore, Frank McRae, Larry Romano
Rating:	3/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097770/
Tagline:	How much can a man take. How far can he be pushed, before he fights back?
Favourite line:	"And you, you get the hell out of my sight before I shine my boots with your face you fat piece of shit."

An efficient enough movie this, that never quite gets off the ground.

Stallone plays Frank Leone, a man sitting out the last of his sentence in an open prison for a minor misdemeanour. One night, he is awoken by guards bursting into his room and informed that he is being transferred to a maximum security facility for 6 months, with no contact with his loyal girlfriend.
The reason?
Back in the day, he really pissed Sutherland's Warden Drumgoole off, and he wants revenge. As the tension is cranked, and Leone is pushed to the limit, he decides to take matters into his own hands and, inevitably, bust out.

Well paced, with enough good performances to carry through to the end (Stallone and Sizemore the star turns here) this engages, though feels like it needs to hit top gear at some point, something it never quite manages.
The banter between inmates is entertaining enough and, whilst delving into sentimentality on occasion, this is enjoyably daft for the duration.
Sylvia himself is someone who comes up against a lot of criticism for his acting, most of it misplaced, and he's on top form here.
There's the obvious homo-erotic undertones that we have come to expect from muscle-men movies, too, with lots of lingering shots of Sylvia's glistening pectorals as he sweats and toils, and even a mud-drenched romp on a football field that, were it not for the fact that I am a raging heterosexual (What's that you say, Graham?), may well have caused a mini-chubber to appear.
Whilst hardly a masterpiece, this certainly killed two hours pleasantly enough, so if retro action is your bag of 'ommers, check this one out.