Convict

Some of the worst acting I've ever seen. The movie is unintentionally funny. It really is that bad.

This is clearly a remake of various prison films, lock up, shawshank redemption, con air, an innocent man with a homage to First blood also.

Actually quite fun even with the wooden acting, worth a watch

CONVICT is a low budget Australian prison film that sees a former soldier sent to a brutal prison where he must survive the machinations of the corrupt warden and a pair of sadistic guards. It's very much par for the course for a prison movie, with all of the shanks, male rape, bathroom beatings and unpleasant torture you'd expect to see, but at the same time it acquits itself well with the material.

The film's lead is played by the unknown-to-me George Basha as a tough but ordinary everyman who soon finds himself adapting to a violent world. The set-up and situations in which he finds himself are very predictable but I've always been a fan of the prison film as a whole so I really enjoyed this. The performances from the unknown cast are strong, particularly the bad guys, and the narrative keeps you guessing as to what's going to unfold next. Mostly though it's that sense of unease, of barely suppressed violence that had me intrigued. Not a great film then, but a solid one in any case.

I wanted to like this low budget, gritty prison drama as I recognised that at least the producers established some realities of Sydney gaol culture - it's completely run along ethnic divisions. Prison gangs ( except for WASP's) Form according to racial profile. There is corruption, violence, and mistrust - and the laws are strictly schoolyard politics. However, that was as far as the realism extended. The premise, the writing, the Plot, the characters were so one-dimensional, so trite it made me cringe. I felt for the actors who had to spout lines so ridiculously predictable it was laughable. It made a Robert.G.Barrett novel seem like Dostoevsky. Warden in cahoots with the prison's top dog? Even the Young Ones were parodying such an overused plot device 35 years ago. The Pathos is slapped on thicker than a cheese and Vegemite sandwich. Obviously the producers thought casting a wide net at the expense of creative integrity was a smart move, but Australian audiences have come along way and are no fools ( except for the troglodytes that simply revere gangster culture). Give this one a very wide berth.

This is not a great movie. It's never going to garner much of 'The Academy's' time and is an absolutely derivative example of the genre, to the point where a seasoned viewer would be able to identify each prison film that is being mined on a scene by scene basis.

That said, it's not terrible either. It's technically competent with regards to sound, lighting and cinematography and the sets and extras make for an immersive and atmospheric environment. Some of the dialogue is a bit leaden, and it's delivery equally so in parts, but this is definitely 5/10 material.

I'm not sure that those reviewers giving 1/10 scores have ever actually seen a truly bad film. This is not one of those.