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Lock Up
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lionsgate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Anthony Arrigo (17th November 2010). |
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The Film
 Somewhere around the late 80's/early 90's is where the cinematic trajectory of Sylvester Stallone’s career began to spiral downward. After riding high on some massive hits in the earlier part of the decade, Stallone began making some questionable decisions regarding his film choices. 1987 saw the release of the feel-good, father/son arm wrestling drama (or unintentional comedy, depending on how you look at it) “Over the Top”. Then, the critically and commercially drubbed “Rambo III” followed in 1988. Intent on bookending that film with another picture that lacks crucial elements like a good story and a strong villain, Stallone made “Lock Up” (1989), one of the most ridiculous films about prison I’ve seen since “The Longest Yard” (1974). Not that this is a comedy, per se, but I doubt the intent was to make prison look like a weekend retreat for men to bond, accomplish goals and teach the youth (unless the lessons involve Shanking 101 or The Proper Way to Toss a Salad). I think the problem is that Stallone had decided that he was more important than the material he was being given. He didn’t need the backdrop of a balls-out action picture to get people to see his movies – all he needed was to simply star in something and they would come. He was wrong. “Lock Up” tanked at the box office, and the ensuing years were far less kind to Stallone’s career than this turkey. I consider myself to be a fan of Stallone’s work, and even I hadn’t really heard about this movie. The thing is, in the pantheon of Sly’s work, this film isn’t nearly good enough to be considered one of his classics, but it isn’t nearly bad enough to play the midnight movie circuit to a raucous audience of drunks looking to laugh for 2 hours. Nope, “Lock Up” falls squarely into the category of middle-of-the-road; a film that has a phoned-in villain, a near-total lack of action and some of the most congenial prison inmates I’ve seen in a serious film. Frank Leone (Sylvester Stallone) is your everyman kind of guy. He’s got a girlfriend, a job and he lives a quiet life. That is, until it comes time for him to head back to prison to finish out a 5-year sentence. But, Frank makes the most of it by befriending the guards and being one of the most well-liked inmates you’re likely to come across. That all changes one night, however, when Frank is mysteriously dragged out of his cell in the middle of the night and unceremoniously transferred to a rough, maximum security prison. He soon learns why, though, when the nefarious Warden Drumgoole (Donald Sutherland) appears to tell him that he’s responsible for having Frank brought here. The warden still holds a grudge from years ago when Frank, desperate to visit the dying old man who had assisted him as a youth, escaped from a prison Drumgoole was warden of, a stunt that added 5 years onto Frank’s sentence and saw Drumgoole demoted down to heading up this decrepit facility. Now, it’s his turn to make Frank’s life a living hell. With no freedoms and a staff of guards willing to beat him down at a moment’s notice, Leone refuses to be broken and insists on finishing up his time without giving the warden the satisfaction of seeing him grovel. I wish I could punch up some elements of the story here, but when the highlight of your film is a mud football game there’s not a whole lot I can do. Seriously, mud football. It felt like the game would never end. Now, I knew this wasn’t going to be some flashy jailbreak film with scenes of inmates storming the prison towers and machine guns mowing down row upon row of faceless guards, but a mud football game? Hell, they could have at least built up the secondary villain, Chink (Sonny Landham), enough to make it seem like Frank faced some real threats. Everyone eyeballs him up and down when he arrives at prison, and I figured he’d have a healthy supply of jobbers to pummel for 90 minutes, but instead the guy manages to befriend almost all of the inmates! How can you have conflict when everyone loves the guy? Chink, and a few cronies of the warden aside, the friggin’ prison yard CHEERS for the guy when he finally gets released (don’t act surprised, you knew he would). I won’t take all the fun out of the film, though. There are still a few scenes where Stallone gets to flex his power and put the beat down on a number of newly-acquired enemies. I just thought there might have been more of an action dynamic to the film. If anything, it’s a drama that got punched up by a script doctor who wanted to give it extra appeal for a big action star like Stallone. I’m normally a big fan of Donald Sutherland’s work, but he really phones this one in. If you try to look behind his eyes, deep into his soul, you can see the reminder that he’s going to buy something nice with the check he’s receiving for his work here. I’m guessing he realized that this movie was going to be as dull on screen as it sounded on paper but, being a consummate professional and all, he sucked it up and churned out his performance. The guy did have some weak motivations, after all. He spends all of these years obsessing over a convict who cost him his job because of a prison break? One which he knows he was responsible for because he was being a prick to Frank about getting a little time out to visit his ailing benefactor. Even worse, you might hate the guy but you already know Frank isn’t going to kill him; that’s no way for a model inmate to prove he’s ready for release. So, you’ll have to accept the standard “take him away, boys” we’re left with at the end. What would a prison movie be without stereotypical caricatures of prison inmates? The role of the fast-talking, “I can get anything you need”, used car salesman type is covered here by Dallas (Tom Sizemore). This was way, way back before Sizemore started doing enough drugs to piss away his career and sleep with cosmetically-enhanced monstrosities like Heidi Fleiss. Here, he’s actually not half bad. He takes an immediate liking to Frank, though I still don’t know why he knew who he was, and he shadows him for the entire film. You can’t have a prison movie without some fresh fish, and that’s where First Base (Larry Romano) comes in. For whatever reason, Frank takes a shining to this young whippersnapper and decides to be his father figure throughout the film. Unless he was planning to take him as his bitch, I don’t know what the purpose was. The kid is young, reckless, stupid, immature, and he wrecks the one thing the guys worked so hard on in the prison automotive factory: a cherry red classic Ford Mustang. These guys busted ass during a montage cut to resemble something straight outta “Rocky III” (1983) and this punk trashes it literally moments after they’re done. And Frank lets him off the hook without even a customary beatdown. Some inmate this guy is. At least we’ve got Chink (Sonny Landham) to stir the pot. Sure, the guy looks like a stone statue (and acts just as well as one), but at least he can kick the crap out of people like it’s a paying job for him. You know who rocks the hardest here? John Amos as Captain Meissner, that’s who. He’s got two rules, and you better believe Stallone follows them. Why? Because John Amos will have your ass, that’s why. I wanted more out of “Lock Up”. A film about Frank’s previous escape would have been more exciting than what we got. I’m sorry, but I still can’t get over the fact that the highlight of the film - the main “action” set piece - is a goddamn football game. I kept hoping that bouts of extreme mayhem were just around the corner, but nothing ever materialized. This isn’t so much a bad movie, because it’s certainly a quick watch with some entertainment value, but it’s so definitively mediocre that you won’t find many reasons for repeat viewings. As a Stallone fan, I was able to overlook some of the flaws but, by the end of the picture, with all of the inmates cheering Frank on as he walks out the gates, I couldn’t help but think how utterly lame most of it was.
Video
“Lock Up” gets sentenced to Blu-ray with a 1.85:1 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 encoded transfer that, quite honestly, surprised me with its quality. This was a low-budget 80's prison film, so I expected it to look drab, washed-out and anemic. Instead, though the picture is largely devoid of robust colors and vivid vistas, the image is consistently clear and cinematic. Rahway State Prison (where the film was shot) is an ugly place, full of metallic hues and steely colors. The detail in their grit is evident here in this high-definition image. Black levels are consistently dark and rich, never fading out into a dark grey or purple. The best looking scenes, of course, are those shot outside in the daylight. Fine detail is excellent in this kind of lighting, especially when you’re watching the muddy, grimy hardcore game of football the men play on the field. Sharpness generally allows for well-defined outlines on screen objects, though there are some shots where the focus is lost and things get a little soft. I can’t find much to complain about, though. This is a quality image with a fine theatrical appearance. What film grain there is never intrudes on the image; it only serves to enhance it.
Audio
Who doesn’t love to listen to the musical themes of Bill Conti in lossless audio? Exactly. The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit sounds great when it’s pumping out Conti’s signature tunes. The problem is that when it isn’t doing that, there isn’t a whole heck of a lot else to give the audio any range. This is a prison movie, so the most you’re likely to get out of your rear speakers is the endless chanting and taunting from other inmates inside the prison or out in the work yard. There’s no gun fire, no explosions, though there is a mildly intense sequence involving a classic Ford Mustang that woke up my subwoofer from its nap. The best this track can offer is the score from Conti. Though I wasn’t a fan of some themes he used here, his signature sound is unmistakable and it sounds fantastic pumping through every speaker in my system. Otherwise, this isn’t the most stellar of tracks. I’d wager that source materials prevent this from sounding better because there’s no much range to be found that requires such a hefty soundtrack. Both English and French DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo tracks are included, as well as a Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 monaural track. Subtitles are available in English, Spanish and French.
Extras
It might appear on the back cover as though “Lock Up” features a moderate amount of supplemental materials, but the fact is that the little we do get is even less than it appears. But this is also the kind of film I’d expect a studio to slap onto Blu-ray without so much as a second thought to giving it ANY bonus materials. We get a couple of featurettes, interviews and the film’s theatrical trailer. It might all be in standard definition, but I’m glad to see Lionsgate include this vintage material that would normally be overlooked. “Making Of” (480p) is a featurette which runs for 6 minutes and 50 seconds. Standard for a 80's EPK, this brief piece features some behind-the-scenes production footage while a narrator fills us in on the production’s notes and locations. Stallone is interviewed and he discusses his character and the film’s plot. I know they don’t always provide the most information, but I love watching these old featurettes. “Sylvester Stallone Profile” (480p) is a featurette which runs for 3 minutes and 13 seconds. This is mainly a profile on how he acts in “Lock Up”, since no other works of his are covered. Stallone talks about his creative process as an actor, as well as discussing how he sees his character in the film as an “every man” who’s just trying to do his time after making a mistake early in life. “Behind the Scenes” (480p) is a featurette which runs for 8 minutes and 12 seconds. There isn’t any focus to this piece, as it’s just a collection of odds and ends from the production showing actors waiting for their cue on set, interacting with prisoners (and signing a few autographs) and shooting the film. It’s unprocessed and unpolished, but it gives you a good idea of what the atmosphere on set was like. A series of (extremely short) interviews (480p) are available for the following cast & crew members: - “Sylvester Stallone” runs for 5 minutes and 4 seconds. - “Donald Sutherland” runs for 20 seconds. - “Sonny Landham” runs for 41 seconds. - “John Amos” runs for 16 seconds. - “Darlanne Fluegel” runs for 41 seconds. The film’s theatrical trailer (480p) runs for 2 minutes and 25 seconds. Finally, the disc includes calibration tests for both video & audio. I so rarely see these included on home media anymore, so it’s a nice inclusion for those who want to utilize them to see if it yields a better picture or sound from their system.
Packaging
Eco case. You know it, I know it. We hate it. But, if you’re a Blu-ray nerd, you already know these are the norm for Lionsgate.
Overall
I’d hesitate to call this one of Stallone’s strongest efforts, but I certainly wouldn’t say it reaches his weakest, either. Look, it’s a movie about a nice guy who gets sent to prison, but this prison doesn’t seem nearly as intimidating as it should. He makes a lot of friends, he plays football, he has a couple fights… sustaining any kind of momentum is an accomplishment as far as I’m concerned. It’s a bit bland, but I had fun watching it. It probably won’t hold much replay value for me, but I’m also a sucker for Stallone’s ‘80s output, so it might find its way back into my player at some point. At least Lionsgate made sure it had a solid picture for its high-definition debut. And the inclusion of vintage extras was a cool move on their part. Since you can grab this up for around $10, I’d say it makes a nice addition to the collection of anyone who’s a fan of his work.
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