Caged to Kill

PRISON RIOT is another B-movie thriller set in a violent prison, where an undercover cop is gunning for revenge against the crime boss who had his family killed. Although Dolph Lundgren features predominantly on the box art, he's actually playing in support here, with the main role given over to unknown actor Matthew Reese. There's also a third character, played by Danielle Chuchran, who seems to have been added to the mix to bring in some female-on-female action.

Inevitably, the plotting and narrative of PRISON RIOT aren't up to much, but the focus is instead on plentiful action sequences. And the good news is that they're pretty good. Gone are the lumbering, slow fights of many a 1990s-era straight-to-VHS fight flick; instead, we get martial arts-themed bouts that have clearly been inspired by the likes of THE RAID. I'm talking multiple opponents and weapons, actors being thrown around the sets, and mucho violence.

Things culminate in a large-scale prison riot - as the title would suggest - which doesn't disappoint. Yes, the acting is rather wooden, with only Lundgren bringing some of his trademark charm to the proceedings, but when a film offers up a wealth of hard-hitting action it doesn't matter too much. Given that I'm a massive fan of THE RAID, any film which seeks to imitate that film is okay in my book, and PRISON RIOT hits the mark nicely.

Chuck Liddell's accent is terrible, and completely unnecessary to the plot (there's no reason for him to be Russian for the story to work).

The producer/lead actor seems to be a good martial artist, but man, he can not act. That's probably okay, though, nobody else in this movie really can, either.

The dialog is awful, but as with many action movies, it really only exists to move the story from one action sequence to the next.

The most unforgivable thing about this action-centric B-movie is that the action is atrocious. I don't know if the choreographer is blind, or has just never seen human beings move before, but these fight scenes had me laughing.

I gave 2 stars instead of one, because the plot is one I haven't seen before. It's not THAT different from other prison movies, but the reason for the antagonist being there is a neat idea.

Best part of this movie was Chuck trying to do a Russian accent...the longer he has to talk the more it goes leans towards Colombian, very funny.

You could honestly miss large chunks of the movie and still know what is going on.

Not good, but not bad either.

I find that if you want to be an action star, all you have to do is produce the movie that you star in and pay to have some lower level, but fairly well-known, washed up celebrities to appear in your movie.I have no idea who plays the main character, but I wanted to watch because of Ivan Drago, I mean Dolph.

Overall, it was okay. The action was fine, the story was fine, but this would have been 1 or 2 stars higher if I didn't have to listen to Chuck Lidell's incredibly horrible take on a Russian accent. Seriously, he sounded like a Mexican born in South America but raised in Uzbekistan. Seriously, every time he talked I wanted to just fast forward through that part of the movie.

I guess if you can stand listening to the Iceman butcher the accent, you might enjoy this movie quite a bit.

The last few Dolph Lundgren flicks have been rough going (specifically the Serafini ones like BLOOD OF REDEMPTION), so I entered RIOT with expectations lower than usual. So it was nice to see it actually putting forth some effort. It is essentially a vanity project (lead Matthew Reese's name appears 3 times in the first 30 seconds) and you have to suffer through UFC fighter Chuck Liddell - sporting a huge HGH belly - doing one of the worst Russian accents in the history of cinema (not an easy feat!), but the filmmakers came up with a twisty plot, some cool guard costumes and did some interesting fight choreography (which was obviously influenced by JOHN WICK and THE RAID films). Not a Dolph- classic by any means, but a decent 85 minutes.