Purgatory

"Carly Arnold" (Tanya Roberts) and her good friend "Melanie" (Julie Pop) are serving in the Peace Corp somewhere in Africa. As they are heading to the airport en route to the United States they happen to pick up a hitchhiker who says he is also headed in that direction. Unfortunately, they encounter a roadblock and during an inspection of their baggage a bag of heroin is found in the hitchhiker's belongings. When the hitchhiker tries to run, he is shot and killed leaving the two young ladies without the main person who might vouch for their innocence. After a quick trial with a preordained guilty verdict, they are both sentenced to 11 years in a prison known as "Purgatory". While there they are raped and abused with neither of them having much chance of acquittal or escape. Anyway, for a women-in-prison movie, this particular film requires viewers to use their imagination a bit as there aren't too many scenes which capture the anguish or violence normally seen in movies of this type. Along with that, except for Tanya Roberts, the rest of the cast suffers badly from a lack of character development. Additionally, while Tanya Roberts certainly performed well enough, she simply wasn't able to carry the movie all by herself. Slightly below average.

The old and crummy VHS-copy I own of "Purgatory" makes it look as if it's a typically raunchy and sexist women-in-prison exploitation movie, like the used to make them during the 70s and early 80s, but this one has slightly more to offer. In fact, I daresay that if "Purgatory" (1) had been based on a true story, (2) starred an actress like Angelina Jolie, and (3) was directed by an acclaimed name like Roland Joffé, this film easily might have won an Oscar. I'm serious.

Does that mean "Purgatory" is an underrated hidden gem? Unfortunately not, it could and should have been much better, but at least it has a captivating story to tell, and there's enough drama and misfortune to last a lifetime. By picking up the wrong type of hitchhiker when they drive to the airport in a fictional African country, two female Peace Corps volunteers are accused of drug-trafficking. What follows is an incredible series of disastrous and downright rotten breaks. The DEA agents don't believe their story, the arrogant US ambassador refuses to help, the corrupt judge accept a $10,000 bribery but still sentences them to 11 years of prison, and the penitentiary - aptly named Purgatory - is a lawless slammer where the head warden rents out the prettiest girls as prostitutes. The whole country is so corrupt that every honest procedure lasts months, and whenever a good Samaritan tries to help, he/she ends up brutally assassinated. Start a riot and attempt to escape seems the only way out for the poor and desperate Carly, but her spirit has - understandably - weakened.

I love Tanya Roberts. Not only because she's unearthly beautiful, but she's normally also a good actress. She doesn't exactly demonstrate this in "Purgatory", however. Her dramatic over-acting is too obviously fake, and even after spending several months in this hellhole of a prison, her hair and skin still look perfectly silky. Director Ami Artzi does manage to create a strong and compelling atmosphere of despair, and you do feel genuine empathy and pity for Carly and her allies. The abuse and torture sequences are quite dull, but they remain decent, and the last 15-20 minutes are action-packed and full of (badly executed) building fires and explosions. Difficult film to rate, this "Purgatory", but don't want to flunk it (like most other reviewers obviously did).

This truly crappy women-in-prison flick looks like a leftover from the 1970s. Like so many of that genre, it was shot in the Philippines. One difference; instead of a totally no-name cast, it has Tanya Roberts, the erstwhile Charlie's Angel. Hold your Oscar nominations, please.

Though none exists, this movie could easily be subtitled, "Carly and Melanie Go to Africa and Get Gang Raped." That's pretty much the size of it. Sadly, poor Melanie drops out in the first twenty minutes, so that leaves Carly ( Roberts ) to fend for herself against a bunch of really yucky people. They're yucky, she's plucky. The outcome is predictable.

Lots of people get killed along the way, not that anyone really cares. The biggest question remains: What is John Newland doing in this dreck? Yes, that's right; the same John Newland who hosted the Sci-Fi TV classic from the 1950s, "One Step Beyond". He's dead now, so it's impossible to ask him. One can only imagine that his last wish was to have his name deleted from the credits. That appears to have been granted.

Pick almost any "Women In Prison" movie where some young lovelies are unjustly thrown behind bars and then abused by the warden, the guards, the other prisoners....That's this movie. Still, it has a young, lovely and long-legged Tanya Roberts as one of the hapless prisoners. There's a little bit of nudity here and there, and a lot of explosions at the end. You've seen it before.

Despite the initial set-up (2 American girls in a foreign - here African - country get arrested and sentenced to 11 years in jail for a crime they didn't commit), "Purgatory" is not really a Women-In-Prison film. It almost completely ignores the daily prison life of the women and focuses on one aspect only: their sexual exploitation. The warden has set up a prostitution ring and the prisoners are used to satisfy the needs of many high-paying customers. After 75 minutes of this repellent junk, we finally get to the escape part. "Purgatory" supposedly has serious intentions: there are even title cards telling us what date it is, and at the end another card telling us what happened to the surviving characters, as if this was based on a true story, even though at the end of the credits there is the usual "any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental" disclaimer. But it is technically rough, even amateurish at times, and although Tanya Roberts deserves credit for taking on a role that has her appear completely unglamorous, she's still too limited an actress to carry a movie by herself. (*)