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A controversial
Hollywood director heads out to an
abandoned prison to check out if the location will
suit his upcoming movie. It seems like it'll be more
than perfect at first, but when a deranged man locks
him up inside a prison cell, he becomes the unwilling
star of a movie that will be his most disturbing work
yet. Who is this man? What does he want? And will
Derek, the director, be able to escape from his cell
before it's too late?
I've been waiting forever for this movie to be released
and when Romar Entertainment decided to get rid of the
rights for it, I figured I'd probably have to wait for
several years before this movie would find a release
date. However, the movie just got a DVD release in
Brazil and it took me about 2 seconds to order it and
here we are. So was it all worth it? Nah, I can't say
that it was. Prisoner isn't a horror film in any way,
it's a mediocre psychological thriller about a jackass
who gets captured and imprisoned in an abandoned prison
by a deranged madman.
There's really not much more to it than that. It's
kind of watching a sequel to "Captivity", only without
the gore, the torture and Elisha in it. That should
explain how empty this ride was. Julian McMahon plays
Derek, an up and coming director who has decided to
shoot a controversial prison movie. He heads out to
the abandoned prison to check out his latest location
and is attacked by a person in a parka. He then wakes
up inside a cell and the person starts asking him a
bunch of questions. During this time, Derek has to
face the ghosts of his past and dig up painful
childhood memories. Perhaps this will make him a bit
more humble in the future - if he survives that is.
See, Derek is on death row and he's slowly moving
closer to the chair.
A whole lot of the movie felt like filler material to
me as we get to see the same flashback scenes several
times throughout the movie. The story isn't all that
interesting either, even though it does have some
qualities. For starters, the first thirty minutes or
so are really suspenseful and entertaining since we
have no idea who's hiding in that parka. After that
however, it all goes downhill. Then there's the fact
that the movie looks stunning. This is no "Curse Of
Alcatraz"-crap I tell you, this is theatrical material
and Romar Entertainment was originally aiming for a
theatrical release for this flick (now it'll probably
end up being a part of the eight films to die for,
which serves it right).
But just because it has decent production values doesn't
mean that it's automatically a good film, it just makes
it easier to sit through. See, Prisoner isn't a difficult
film to sit through at all. In fact, I was fairly
intrigued throughout the entire movie for whatever
reason, even though I knew in my head that I was just
watching a well-polished turd. Surely, Prisoner will
fool some reviewers out there into thinking that it's
a good movie due to its "deep" and "dark" content, but
it really is quite a shallow movie and the end twist
is just so obvious and cliché that it's not even
funny. I wouldn't waste my time hunting this one down
if I were you. But if you still want this movie, you
can have my copy for free, that's for sure.
Some blood, nothing much.
Decent score, did what it was intended to do.
Prisoner may look great, have a stellar cast and a
great set-up, but in the end, this one just fell flat
for me. This is not a horror flick in any possible way,
it's a psychological thriller at best - and a very
mediocre one at that. It's got some qualities but
not enough to make me recommend it. Don't bother.
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