Lockdown

Lockdown is a great movie. Sad but real. Lockdown is a story about an aspiring swimmer named Avery (Richard T Jones). One of his main goals in life is to become a swimmer One night while he and his two friends Dre and Cashmere ( Gabriel Casseus, Deaundre Bonds) are driving in Cashmere's car they find a gun. The gun is linked to a fast food robbery earlier that night. The Police tracks them down and finds the gun on them. They all get sentenced for armed robbery and murder.

Gabriel Casseus's performance of the hyper and thuggish Cashmere was brilliant. Bonds role of Dre was not bad, but it didn't live up like the roles of Richard T Jones and Gabriel Casseus. Master P is also great as Clean Up, the vicious inmate who has security guards working for him, his drugs being brought in and out of the prison a ho of a girlfriend who Cashmere gets a piece of, and he wants Cashmere to do his dirty work.

The supporting cast was brilliant. Melissa De Sousa as Avery's girl Krista; Sticky Fingaz as Broadway the ex drug dealer turned inmate; Bill Nunn as Avery's scouter for college and his attorney; And Clifton Powell who was the OG of the prison, and I felt he should've had a longer part in the movie.

Lockdown is Master P's best movie to date.

Many references to HBO's Oz have been made about this movie. The two are similar, but the gangs focused on here are limited to the Blacks and Aryans. The colorful actors are convincing in their roles. Master P comes across as a worthy heavy. Craig T. Jones provides the great contrast of clean cut protagonist. With a plethera of unwatchable exploitive black urban videos, Lockdown is a high quality cut above.

Right - another prison flick. Another movie about a young black man, in this case 3 young black men, wrongly accused of a crime, convicted and sent to prison. The statement behind that injustice is bold enough. It's a bit "Boyz n the Hood" up to that point. Once it hits the prison - there are few comparisons to match some of the intensity (how's that for ambiguity?).

This movie has a few valuable segments worth the rest of its deficits. A few scenes may take you to a place you do not want ever to be. There are moments in the prison scenes where the actors are so credible it might as well be real. The directing had flickers of greatness to capture that intensity.

But just like that, in a flicker you're back to watching a $2 film worth a penny. Just watch it for the acting and directing behind a few prison scenes that fairly represent "Lockdown".

Yes, this is a brutal film. It's scary to us who are not criminals or have not been around these types for any length of time. Since I am a fan of HBO's "OZ," I felt that I'd partake in this much talked about flick. I ordered the DVD and I'm pleased to have it in my collection, mainly because it introduced me to a couple of really good actors. Bill Nunn, as Charles, the college scout, I've seen for years on TV and in the movies.

Richard T. Jones was new to me. If he is going to be a star, he shouldn't do what Sidney Poitier did: ignore his own lighting. The star MUST always be lit correctly, especially if he is darker skinned. Mr. Jones is a good-looking leading man type and he should "tend to his business" and make sure HE looks good on that screen.

"Lockdown" is an okay movie. Gabriel Casseus as Cashmere was appropriately ignorant and vacuous. His "don't care" attitude is pervasive in poor neighborhoods where people feel helpless and hopeless in America. It was not surprising that he, a drug dealer, with a violent demeanor ended up in jail and adapted easily to that macabre world behind bars.

Of course it was different for Dre (De'Aundre Bonds) as the sensitive brother of Jones' girlfriend, Krista (Melissa De Sousa). Dre is not gay, but his good looks scream "woman" to brutes behind bars. He is viciously raped by two Aryan thugs the first day he arrives in the big house. He is immediately frightened into becoming Graffiti's "bitch," sexually available at "his man's" will. Graffiti (David "Shark" Fralick) is a muscular and insane drug dealer who is in competition with the head black dealer, Clean Up (played by rapper, Master P) who is a psychotic, disgusting character who would kill you for a nickle, no problem. His speech is as brutal as the part he portrays.

The movie is about survival, and that is what Avery (Jones) has to do, if he wants any kind of life and future. Yes, the characters are sterotypical, but aren't they always in this kind of vehicle?

The sex was played down in this, as it is in all American-made prison films. Americans are very squemish about man/man sex and DO NOT want to see it on the screen. Two woman. That's okay. When are we going to grow up?

If you liked "OZ" you might like this. But be prepared. It's not an easy watch.

I am a big fan of prison movies but this movie really did not work for me. The plot was not very interesting with cookie cutter characters on top of that the acting was pretty poor. It rates four beers on my beer/movie rating system.