Cellmates

I saw this at the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival. It was my favorite film there. The audience was laughing so much that at times, it was hard to hear the film. Who would have thought Tom Sizemore playing a racist KKK member would be so hilarious. Hector Jimenez is also wonderfully funny as a farm labor worker who must share a cell with Sizemore's character. Stacy Keach also lights up the screen with his portrayal of the prison warden who is obsessed with potatoes. I don't want to ruin where the story goes but the film transcends being just a comedy and makes a statement on race relations in this country. Well written and directed, I recommend it to all!

I believe character actors can give you surprises anytime... when it comes to Tom Sizemore, I only remembered him in Heart and Souls although I had seen him quite often in several other movies... but boy how good he did it in Cellmates, it made me check out his resume here and got me remember more than a dozen of his performances in the movies I had already seen...

The plot is very straight and obvious... a mean racist guy learns to love people... but the process which he goes through is what you have to enjoy in the movie... I personally think this movie is as surprising as Bad-Ass starring Danny Trejo.. Do watch it... you won't regret...

Tom Sizemore wrings every moment out of the role of a lifetime. A hateful guy, practically a Nazi, whom you can't help loving. You sympathize with him throughout this romp despite his insane beliefs. This was Mr. Sizemore's moment. 'Nuff said. I don't want him to get big-headed. The rest of the cast was right on and gave everything they had. Over the top? Sure. Cartoon-like characters, yes. Mugging stolen straight from The Three Stooges? Absolutely, but this clever film manages to take an extremely touchy subject: racism, and turn it into a screaming comedy, a comedy with pathos. Disgusting as the warden (Stacy Keach) is, you can't help but like the guy and Héctor Jiménez is a one of a kind, professional scene-stealer by trade. The pacing of Cellmates is just right. Not fast, but never a dull moment. The sweet Olga Segura adds mucho encanto and romance without saying a word on screen, and I was impressed that the script by Baget and Moscato never allowed itself to be drawn into the usual prison clichés: food fights, shanks, mean hulk-like bullies and sadistic guards, etc. This being a prison work farm, the prisoners had more freedom and we didn't have to look at all the hard-core tattooed killers and perverts shuffling around in chains. Overall, an uplifting film with sorry-ass characters you just gotta love. Don't fail to add this to your collection.

Leroy Lowe, grand dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan confronts everything he's been taught to hate when he's sentenced to three years of hard labor on a prison work farm, where Warden Merville, dead set on rehabilitating Leroy, chooses Emilio, a Hispanic field worker imprisoned for fighting for labor rights, to be his cell-mate.

The plot of this one is very forced -- there is no way a man is going to enter into prison as a head of a white supremacist group and start warming up to the idea of migrant worker's labor rights or even think about starting a relationship with a Mexican woman. So if we were to judge this film on realism, it fails miserably.

Luckily, as a comedy, it need not be judged on realism. It only has to be funny. And it is. Tom Sizemore and Stacy Keach are both humorous, and it was nice to see Keach put a new spin on a role he already covered nicely in "Prison Break".

(2012) Cellmates COMEDY DRAMA

I would've given this film a bomb, but because it has put me to sleep every time I put it on, I'm going to give it at least one star for doing just that. The set up is a silly one, and it consists users to alter their brains to this kind of level. Stars Tom Sizemore as KKK supporter, Leroy Lowe who's just been sentenced to 3 years in prison while his best friend, Bubba (Kevin P. Farley) and 'cellmate' only get a year, for a multiple of offenses nothing to do with race. Leory also happens to be the movie's narrator, as he rants about his time being locked up in a prison with a warden named Merville (Stacy Keach) who takes great pride into managing his potato field, since he's won awards. When Bubba becomes a vegetable as a result of choking on a potato, Leroy then have to share his cell with a another cellmate who happens to be a refugee from Mexico called Emileo (Héctor Jiménez) who's being locked up because of his right to have better pay working with short hours. And at the same time, Leroy ends up corresponding with a warden's maid, Madalena (Olga Segura) by way of letters behind the warden's back, and without him looking. The only problem is that, all the letters are written in Spanish whereas it's only language Madalena is capable to understand. And that Leory needs the assistance of Emileo to help him translate what the letters are saying, as well as writing letters back to her. One of the problems making a low budget movie is that that it eliminates specific questions that needed to be answered, while answering others, such as how did it come about that Madalena selected to correspond with the racist Leroy as opposed to the others, who also have to listen to the warden babble about potatoes? And since when did warden's respect letters from coming in and out, with zero effort to intercept any that may convict him? If Leroy assaulted Emileo, why wasn't it used against him? It is those questions and more which is why I can't recommend this movie, even though it has potential.