Fortress (1992 film)

Fortress
Directed by	Stuart Gordon
Written by	Troy Neighbors Steven Feinberg
Produced by	John Davis John Flock
Starring	Christopher Lambert Kurtwood Smith Loryn Locklin Jeffrey Combs Vernon Wells Clifton Collins, Jr.
Cinematography	David Eggby
Music by	Frédéric Talgorn
Distributed by	Dimension Films
Release dates	September 3, 1993 (USA)
Running time	91 min.
Language	English
Budget	$12,000,000 (estimated)

Fortress is a 1993 film directed by Stuart Gordon shot at Warner Brothers Movie World in Queensland, Australia.. The story takes place in a dystopian future. The main character in the movie, John Henry Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife Karen B. Brennick (Loryn Locklin) are sent to a maximum security prison because they are expecting a second child, which is against strict one-child policies.

Cast

• Christopher Lambert: John Henry Brennick
• Loryn Locklin: Karen B. Brennick
• Kurtwood Smith: Prison Director Poe
• Carolyn Purdy-Gordon: Voice of Zed-10
• Lincoln Kilpatrick: Abraham
• Jeffrey Combs: D-Day, Computer Geek
• Tom Towles: Stiggs, Maddox’s Buddy
• Vernon Wells: Maddox
• Clifton Collins Jr. (credited as Clifton Gonzalez-Gonzalez): Nino Gomez

Plot

Set in a dystopian future the year 2017, in the USA, the US Army officer John Henry Brennick (Christopher Lambert) and his wife (and possibly US army officer also) Karen S. Brennick (Loryn Locklin) are expecting a second child. Strict one-child policies forbid a second pregnancy, but the couple attempts it anyway because their first child unfortunately died at child-birth.

They are caught and sent to a maximum security prison that is owned and run by a company, rather than the government, called the “MenTel Corporation.”

John Brennick has to deal with an unreasonable environment; he is not allowed to dream in his sleep, and is tortured by a sadistic Prison Director (Kurtwood Smith). His unborn child is now officially owned by the MenTel Corporation (the company seems to use these children to create cyborgs).

Fortunately, Prison Director Poe has an eye on John Brennick’s wife, Karen. John befriends a Computer Geek, D-Day (Jeffrey Combs) who find a way to remove the special “intestinator” chips that are implanted in each prisoner’s intestines, and can cause great pain and even explode when set off by the security system. He also manages to convince his fellow prisoner Abraham (Lincoln Kilpatrick) that Poe will never allow his parole, and is only using it as a carrot on a stick.

This opens an opportunity to escape.

After uploading a virus on the AI computer warden Zed-10 (voice by Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) the group manages to escape.

John Brennick and his wife flee to Mexico, where they have the baby (Annika Thomas).

Original ending

The original ending of Fortress has been cut from some versions of the film. After taking one of the Men-Tel trucks to escape into Mexico, Brennick, his wife and Gomez end up near a barn where Brennick's wife starts going into labour. Brennick and Gomez go out for supplies and while they are away, the Fortress (or similar) computer manages to establish a remote linkup with the truck by that time, overriding its internal controls—and the truck suddenly comes to life all on its own. When Brennick and Gomez return, the truck runs Gomez over and kills him, it then crashes into the barn, while a distraught Brennick watches. He climbs into the burning ruins and finds his wife—sitting against an old and rusted tractor, clutching her blanketed baby.

Critical reaction

Stephen Holden of The New York Times said: "Like so many other futuristic movies, Fortress is a lot better at setting up its premise than in developing a story around it, [but] for all its faults, [it] has an unusually energetic imagination. At its best, it blends RoboCop, The Handmaid's Tale, and Brave New World into something scary, original and grimly amusing."

Nathan Shumate of Cold Fusion Video Reviews said: "It’s a good little film, kept very interesting by a multitude of plot twists. [...] The beauty of this movie is that it’s not terribly ambitious; [director Stuart] Gordon knew that it was not meant to be this generations’s defining science fiction film, and so instead had fun with it. The characters are colorful and engaging, and the actors are b-movie all-stars; the story moves along at a fair clip; and the prison itself is a novel setting, with plenty of inconsistencies in future technology but none that sit up and insist that you notice them."

James Berardinelli of ReelViews said: "Fortress has [...] an impressive visual style, [...] the set design is excellent, and the action scenes are well-paced, [but it's] hampered by a poorly-constructed storyline [and] never gets on track. Instead of entering the rarefied atmosphere inhabited by such films as Aliens and the original Terminator, it falls in line with the likes of Freejack and Alien 3."

See also

• Fortress 2: Re-Entry

External links

• Fortress at IMDb