Furlough

Definitely not great but not the worst. Either way it's watchable despite its cringey moments where the prisoner gets cuffs off and even free from the C.O. for a portion of time, which was ridiculous on many levels. Melissa Leo was pretty decent and so was the young Tessa Thompson; mediocre for what it is.

The movie is enjoyable to a certain level ,, but i kinda expected a comedy movie to be actually funny ,, i mean it was okay ,, heartwarming for some scenes but not funny ,,, i don't know ,, i think there was that one scene with the taser and that was it .

The idea and the plot are original and had some potentials but the screenplay was so dull and not interactive.. I liked that intense Tessa Thompson character but still didn't rise to the occasion, same goes for Melissa Leo.

I think i'm being a bit generous giving the movie a 4 stars review ,, just for the idea itself.

The cast is good and the film is technically well made, but it lacks any kind of - well - interest.

It just meandres on with a few things happening - then it is the end of the film - that is it.

The story had a great deal of potential that it fails to fulfill.

I really expect more from this movie. It has a number of my favorite actors. It had a good premise. I considered watching it again incase I missed something but decided against it.

The story is ripe with plot holes. Melissa Leo has the strongest performance in my opinion. At least she could say she went to jail for bad decisions and with even being near the end of her sentence she would still make bad choices. I would guess either the director or writer were to blame for failed performances of Tessa Thompson and Whoopi Goldberg.

At least the camerawork was good. Worth seeing once if you have the time and nothing better to watch. Hopefully whoever was at fault will improve their craft in the future.

A young, struggling part-time correctional officer gets the chance to become full-time by escorting a prisoner to her mother's deathbed. She is obviously supposed to learn something from the experience of trying to chaperone an unruly but older prisoner. Instead of a script that might let them learn or bond, instead it's a series of scenes with them simply sitting together as they travel.

Unfortunately, it feels as if the plot gets elements added to it to make it difficult. Most of what occurs in the trip seems to happen for no good reason, except to create situations where the inmate can escape, at least temporarily? Why, for example, would they be forced to take a bus and then a train to the mother (but then quickly return via rental car)? Why does the phone of the officer constantly ring or receive texts? Why do romantic interests appear and disappear as if put on the screen like chess pieces?

In short, I wanted to like this movie but it seems a mess, and I kept wondering how much Whoopie Goldberg and Anna Paquin were paid for what must have been 2 days of shooting each (if that). The humour really doesn't work - painfully so. The script is dull at best, and the tone is sometimes too mournful for it's own good. If you are a fan of Orange is the New Black, any episode you've seen is better than this.