LOCK UP / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: JOHN FLYNN / SCREENPLAY: RICHARD SMITH, JEB STUART / STARRING: SYLVESTER STALLONE, DONALD SUTHERLAND, JOHN AMOS, TOM SIZEMORE / RELEASE DATE: 23RD SEPTEMBER
Long before he came up with an Escape Plan, Stallone was locked up in another prison. Frank Leone (Stallone) has six months left of his sentence when he is rudely awoken one night by a sudden transfer to a maximum security facility, Gateway, run by Warden Drumgoole, who has an axe to grind.
A few years previously, Leone escaped from another prison run by Drumgoole and he has not forgotten. His plan now is to make Leone make a mistake in his last six months and extend his sentence for as long as possible. Leone just wants to run his sentence down, but the guards, controlled by Drumgoole and Meissner (Amos), want to make Leone snap. They try to make his life a living hell by beating him, physically and mentally, and putting him solitary confinement.
When Leone makes some friends, Drumgoole decides to get to him through them. The always reliably extreme Sonny Landham plays the prison hardcase who is determined to kill Leone himself. He comes very close when he takes out one of Leone’s pals and. when Drumgoole hatches a plan to scare Leone into making a break for it by using a guard to pretend to be a prisoner who threatens to rape and kill his girlfriend when he gets out before Leone, our anti-hero tries to break out. It all ends with a showdown in the execution chamber and a war of wills, rather than muscle, between Drumgoole and Leone.
Lock Up is your typical 80s prison-based movie. All the natural cliches you can expect are there to be readily ticked off if you decide to have a drinking game – pigeon guy, canteen bonding, shanking, crooked guards to name but a few.
Fortunately, the talent on show raise this above the norm. Even Stallone is on good form and a performance of a completely buzzing Sizemore shows how he managed to carve a short-lived career. Amos literally takes no prisoners with his character who is hard but fair and Sutherland oozes malevolence without needing to shout or without turning in a camp performance.
It hasn’t dated brilliantly, but for an 80s vehicle with one of the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time, Lock Up is understated and doesn’t outstay its welcome, with or without parole.
