Pénitencier III

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.

After beginning in a very sort of "afro-Rocky" way, unsung berserk exploitation director, Jamaa Fanaka, return to his blaxploitation roots with this one. Tony Geary, former "General Hospital" star, returns to his roots as well, with his strangest film since he got raunchy with future "Ilsa" Dyanne Thorne, in "Blood Sabbath" (1972). Leon Isaac Kennedy returns as "Too Sweet", and ends up boxing, in prison, again. But this time he meets an eventually helpful, mystical dwarf,"The Midnight Thud", who teaches him Kung Fu when not smoking crack. Geary gets all strange as the nasty "Serengeti", and seems to be channeling Chris Walken throughout. Fanaka knocks this out of our normal dimension, but doesn't quite equal some of his other, less profitable work, like "Welcome Home Brother Charles" (aka "Soul Vengeance"), where other mystical midgets also assist the "hero".

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!!!

This film begins with "Martel 'Too Sweet' Gordone" (Leon Isaac Kennedy) once again in the boxing ring fighting against an opponent that he highly respects. Unfortunately, unknown to him, his manager slips a drug into his water bottle between rounds which causes him to go into an uncontrollable rage and results in the death of his opponent. Not only does this death fill him with extreme regret afterward, but he is then sentenced to prison as a result of lab tests done after the fight which showed the presence of an illegal substance. Although he declines the offer made by "the Warden" (Ric Mancini) to fight on his boxing team, he soon learns that refusing to fight on a rival team headed by an inmate named "Serenghetti" (Anthony Geary) has severe consequences. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I didn't honestly care for this movie at all as the plot was much too silly to be taken seriously. As a matter of fact, although it is billed as an action film, some of the scenes are so ridiculous that it should probably be listed as a comedy instead. And even then the comedy wasn't that good. That being said, those who enjoy bad films might find some value in it, but otherwise I would recommend avoiding it altogether.

This is the third part in what must be one of the strangest, most specific movie franchises ever. The 'Penitentiary' series is about a prison where boxing tournaments seem to be par for the course. Despite the clearly unlikely set-up, the first film was actually a reasonably good blaxploitation prison drama. This third instalment, despite covering much the same ground, adopts a much different approach. It isn't so much a drama as a comedy, with all manner of ridiculous scenes. There is even homage to the most famous scene from the first film where the hero Too Sweet engages in an extended fight with a scary fellow inmate within the close confines of his cell. In this flick, Too Sweet again fights another adversary in his cell but this time it's a deranged midget! Like the scene from the first movie, this is also the best sequence in the film. Except this one really seems like a parody of the first in its sheer silliness. The midget is a psychotic madman who lives in chains in a dungeon underneath the prison, and he is brought out to batter prisoners who go against the grain. It's monumentally daft of course but is in keeping with the general tone of the entire film which is consistently ridiculous. To be fair, the movie does have some genuine funny parts too, such as when Too Sweet is driven to jail at the beginning to the melancholic sound of a saxophone, only for the camera to pan down and see that some fellow inmate is actually playing this music in the van. Penitentiary III is a film for those who want to watch a film for a few laughs with a couple of beers. It has its moments but overstays its welcome.