Pénitencier III

Howdy howdy folks, Malibu Stacy: Film Critic has been on a long hiatus. I got very depressed because the Wellesley News does such a damn fine job reviewing all the latest in cinematic achievement that I felt I was a pathetic superfluity. (For those Newsies reading, that means that I felt I was useless and unneeded.) But late one night while I was home for spring break waiting for my mom to stumble home from the bars, I caught a terrific movie that I think the crack reporters down at the News might have missed.

It's called Penitentiary III, and, while I have not seen Penitentiaries I or II, I can only assume they are among those superior indie films that languish unsung beneath the big budget Hollywood blockbusters that threaten to irradiate innovative projects like these. Okay, what happens is this: a boxer called Too Sweet (as usual I forget his real name, it had a lot of syllables) is convicted of first degree murder because he killed a man in the ring while under the influence of a strength inducing drug, which we later learn he took unknowingly. We first meet Too Sweet as he dejectedly rides the prison bus to his new home. On the bus he finds out that the prison is controlled jointly by the warden and a prisoner, Serengeti (like the African plains) to whom the warden is deeply in debt. Between them, the warden and Serengeti run a boxing circuit and they take turns drafting the most promising prisoners as prize-fighters. Naturally, Too Sweet is the first draft pick, but he refuses first the warden's offer and then Serengeti's because he has renounced violence as a way of life, unfortunately he picked a bad time to try that.

It is also at this point in the movie that we learn about Serengeti. When Too Sweet's is required to have an audience with the powerful prison gang lord, he is instructed to back into the cell, which is curtained in red velvet. However, we find out what kind of rebel T.S. is when he whirls around to face Serengeti because he `likes to face a man when he tells him no.' Serengeti is a frail old white man who did his best to look like Christopher Walken. He likes to wear a red silk robe and have his long nails manicured by his transvestite bitch called Cleopatra.

Serengeti doesn't like to be balked of course, so he sets loose his secret weapon on T.S., a thing they call... The Midnight Thud. The Midnight Thud is a bald black midget that Serengeti has the guards keep in `the hole' and torture with electric shocks. As Too Sweet's cellmate and good buddy, Rosco-the-sax-playing-inmate, tells him, `The Midnight Thud has been robbed of his humanity.' He was also robbed of any clothes except boxer shorts and a dog collar. Armored guards throw Thud into a cell with T.S. and the two fight. The Thud has the advantages of only making growling sounds, having been given a lead pipe and knowing how to fly up into the air and land in his opponent's shoulders and strangle him with his thighs. Too Sweet has the advantages of being a full grown adult, a boxer and the fact that the Thud is hungry and he keeps forgetting to fight while he tries to eat Too Sweet's oranges. Too Sweet wins the fight, but in his new status as a pacifist decides not to kill the unconscious Thud. Serengeti, left with no recourse for vengeance, has Too Sweet sent to the hole where he is tortured by electroshock and he begins to be robbed of his humanity too. His friend Rosco however, convinces the Warden (who, other than his compulsive gambling, is not such a bad guy) to take an interest in T.S. if Rosco wins a boxing match for him, which he does. The warden tells T.S. that he'll get him out of the hole if he trains Rosco to win the big tournament, allowing the warden to win back all the money he's gambled away to Serengeti. Even though T.S. has renounced violence, he's tired of eating rats and being growled at by Thud so he agrees to train Rosco, which he does in a very stirring montage set to music by White Snake. Meanwhile, the prison boxing matches continue and the warden even invites inmates from the lady prison across the lake to come over and lady-box as well as be spectators in the men's events. For me, the climax of the movie comes (literally) when, on the day of Rosco's big fight, he and the warden sneak in the champion lady boxer who looks like a Denny's waitress in Hooter's Girls' clothing. She hasn't `been with a man since her sentencing' and after some strained banter, she and Too Sweet make animal love. Unbeknownst to Too Sweet however, Serengeti knows about the training and has moved up Rosco's match while T.S. and his lady are having a conjugal visit, and as extra insurance, he has a guard lock the door, which, of course was not already locked even though this is a prison. Serengeti, who watches the fights with Cleopatra on a closed circuit television as someone videotapes them, sees that even without T.S. present, Rosco is winning, so he sends word that he wants his fighter to take a dose of the same drug that landed Too Sweet in prison. This turns the fighter into the Incredible Hulk and Rosco takes a licking. Too Sweet is finally let out in time to see Rosco passed out or dead, it's hard to tell. Now that it's personal, he vows to seek revenge and begins to train to fight Serengeti's best fighter, a guy who was too big and burly to join the World Wrestling Federation. Too Sweet trains himself in the hole, to the same montage that Rosco used, until The Midnight Thud tells him he can teach him `big magic.' It turns out Thud has not quite lost all his humanity, and once Too Sweet gets a shirt on him, he's a very articulate guy who tells T.S. that a man's power is in his guts. So T.S. trains by having Thud ram a doorknob into his stomach while yelling `GUTS! GUTS! GUTS!' Finally the day of the big fight arrives, and I'll leave the final outcome to the reader's imagination, mostly because about then my mom came home and I was busy putting her to bed and telling the sailors to go back to their ship. But Penitentiary III, like all the movies I review, is not just a fine film; it also teaches a lesson. That lesson is, if you have to go to prison, and you still don't like girls, the only chance you may have for getting action is to become a lady boxer.

Penitentiary III (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Too Sweet (Leon Isaac Kennedy) is in the boxing ring when he goes crazy and beats the other boxer to death. He's sentenced to three years in prison and sure enough he gets there just in time to join a boxing competition put on by the warden and one of the most powerful inmates there.

The final film in Jamaa Fanaka's trilogy appears to have a bigger budget than the first two and it's certainly much more polished but at the same time there's no question that it's the weakest of the lot. Cannon produced and released this third film and it's hard to believe that you could ever say that they made the "best looking" film of a series but I think this is part of the problem.

The film just look too good for its own good. The less-than-stellar quality of the first two films made them perfect exploitation movies. This film here doesn't reach the same levels of camp and it just comes across as a rather bland "C" movie without too many memorable scenes. The highlight is a scene early on when Too Sweet must battle an almost demonic character that turns out to be a midget! This fighting scene is good and certainly the best thing about the picture.

The performances are much better this time around and as I said there's no question that this film looks a lot more professional. Sadly, the story itself is nothing original and there's really just nothing all that entertaining here. It's really too bad because the first two films are so awful that you can't help but love them. This third film just doesn't have the same charm.

A prison/boxing movie that has to be seen to be believed. It's almost impossible to explain. Too Sweet ends up in prison again because he violently pummels a boxer to death during a boxing match after his drink was spiked with some sort of drug that made him crazy and more violent. The prison has a dungeon(!!!) where a midget is kept like an animal and who is routinely left out of by the prison wardens whenever they want to get rid of a prisoner. The prison is basically controlled by a blond man who's prison cell is decorated with tacky red curtains and paintings. And he's got a "girlfriend," a man in complete drag. At one time, the killer midget is sent into Too Sweet's cell and the two fight a *really* long fight that's a real head scratcher. BTW, during this long fight Too Sweet is only in his underwear! This scene is the "highlight" of the movie.

There are more fights during the rest of the movie but I lost track of everything afterwards. The whole thing is just too weird. Everyone involved must have been on drugs or something. PENITENTIARY 3 exists in its own alternative Cannon universe.

How can you go wrong with a plot like "A man is framed for murder and sent to prison. He is beaten and tortured, then forced to fight the prison's worst killer, a martial-arts fighting midget called Thud." ??

This is a B-grade pen movie but it is so bad that it's actually a lot of laughs. I saw this movie ten years ago when I was 16 but I bet I'd enjoy it again if I were to watch it now.

7/10

There is no way that this movie could have been made to be taken seriously. I won't give away the plot(because it is so ludicrous that your mouth will be agape for the entire running time, I kid you not!), but ask anyone who has seen this about "The Midnight Thud" and get ready to see that person collapse in a fit of laughter. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION FOR SHEER STUPIDITY!!!