Lock Up (1989 film)

Lock Up
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Flynn
Written by	Richard Smith Jeb Stuart Henry Rosenbaum
Produced by	Charles Gordon Lawrence Gordon
Starring	Sylvester Stallone Donald Sutherland John Amos Darlanne Fluegel Frank McRae Sonny Landham
Cinematography	Donald E. Thorin
Edited by	Don Brochu Robert A. Ferretti Michael N. Knue Barry B. Leirer
Music by	Bill Conti
Production companies	Gordon Company White Eagle Pictures Carolco Pictures
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date	August 4, 1989 (1989-08-04)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$24 million
Box office	$22 million

Lock Up is a 1989 American prison action film directed by John Flynn. The film stars Sylvester Stallone and Donald Sutherland. It was released in the United States on August 4, 1989.

Plot

Frank Leone, a skilled mechanic and football player in Hoboken, New Jersey, is a model prisoner nearing the end of his sentence in Norwood, a low security prison. He occasionally spends time outside prison in his garage fixing cars, playing football and spending time with his girlfriend Melissa.

One night, while sleeping in his cell, guards arrive and forcibly take Leone to maximum security Gateway Prison run by Warden Drumgoole. Drumgoole explains to him, that he will serve hard time, because he escaped once from Treadmore and did so on Drumgoole's watch. He escaped because his mentor and friend was dying; Leone was refused even one hour to see him so Leone escaped to visit him and went to the press about the warden's treatment of his prisoners, resulting in Drumgoole's transfer to Gateway and Leone serving five additional years in minimum security before his transfer.

Leone is mistreated by the guards and the boss of the inmates, Chink Weber, who is Drumgoole's muscle appendage. There he befriends fellow prisoners Dallas, Eclipse, and First-Base, and shows them his concept of freedom that has helped Leone go on: that the body may be confined to one place, but "your mind can be wherever you want it". The foursome refurbish a Ford Mustang, which Eclipse nicknames "Maybelline". Leone explains to Eclipse that he was sent to prison for taking the law into his own hands when he avenges an attack on his father. After Leone reluctantly allows First-Base to start the car he refuses to turn it off and drives the Mustang out of the garage. Drumgoole makes them watch as inmates destroy the car and Leone is subsequently sent to solitary confinement for six weeks. There Leone is tortured by the guards who wake him at random points in the middle of the night, forcing him to face a security camera and dictate his name and prisoner number. However,the guards' captain, Meissner, and one other guard become so disgusted with the crude sadism of the warden and his toadies that Meissner orders it to stop and releases Leone from confinement.

Upon release, the warden wants an excuse to slap Leone with more time, so he has Weber kill First-Base in the gym. Leone fights and defeats Chink, but spares Chink's life because he knows that's precisely what Drumgoole wants. Since Leone didn't kill Chink one of Chink's friends stabs Leone from behind with a shank. Whilst Leone recovers in the prison infirmary, a stranger, says to him, that the warden has paid him to rape and murder Melissa. Dallas offers to help Leone escape to warn Melissa but instead delivers him to the utility basement right into Drumgoole's hands where he finds out that Drumgoole wanted him to try to escape so he would receive a mandatory 10-year sentence for the second escape attempt. Dallas agreed with the warden to lead Leone into a trap only if the warden would give Dallas an early release from prison, but the warden betrays Dallas, ordering him back to the general population. Knowing he will be killed by the general population prisoners after setting up Leone, Dallas tries to attack the warden but the corrupt sadistic prison guards beat him up and push him into a pool of water. The warden then leaves the sadistic guards to physically abuse Leone. Leone breaks free. Dallas, badly beaten up, apologizes to Leone and helps him escape sacrificing his life and killing one of the guards on the way.

Enraged, Leone breaks into Drumgoole's office, takes him to the execution chamber and straps him to the electric chair. He activates the generator and secures his hand to the switch. The prison guards break into the execution chamber and point their weapons at Leone, but don´t shoot because of the situation. Under threat of being executed, the warden finally confesses to his plot to increase Leone's jail time. Leone pulls the switch anyway but nothing happens; he then reveals he took one of the fuses out before to trick the warden into confessing. Captain Meissner and his men cuff Frank, but they also take Drumgoole into custody for the legal confession.

A judicial inquiry is made into the matter about the warden's corrupt behavior and Leone serves only the jail time required of him in the first place. A few weeks later Frank leaves prison to the cheers of his fellow inmates and meets up with Eclipse one last time. He wishes Captain Meissner farewell, exits Gateway and embraces the waiting Melissa.

Cast

• Sylvester Stallone as Frank Leone
• Donald Sutherland as Warden Drumgoole
• John Amos as Captain Meissner
• Sonny Landham as Chink Weber
• Tom Sizemore as Dallas
• Frank McRae as Eclipse
• Darlanne Fluegel as Melissa
• William Allen Young as Braden
• Larry Romano as First Base
• Jordan Lund as Manly
• John Lilla as Wiley
• Dean Duval as Ernie
• Jerry Strivelli as Louie Munafo
• David Anthony Marshall as Mastrone
• Kurek Ashley as Chink's Gang Member
• Michael Petroni as Chink's Gang Member
• Danny Trejo as Chink's Gang Member
• Frank Pesce as Johnson

Production

John Flynn later recalled how the movie was made:

Stallone had a “window,” which means the guy was available for a certain window of time. Larry Gordon had a terrible script set in a prison. Stallone calls James Woods and asks if I’m any good as a director. Woods says yeah, he’s a good director and you ought to work with him. So we have a director and a star, but no script. All we have is a theme - a guy escaping from prison. So we hire Jeb Stuart, who was then one of the hottest writers in Hollywood, to rewrite the script and we go off looking for prison locations. Now we have a star, a theme, a shooting date, a budget, a studio, but we still have no script. So we all go back to New York and move into a hotel where Larry “tortures” Jeb and Henry Rosenbaum into writing a script in record time. Meanwhile, I’m going around scouting prisons. We finally found one in Rahway, New Jersey. Jeb and Henry were writing the script as we were making the movie. New pages would come in every day. There was one day when I was on the third tier of a cellblock in Rahway Penitentiary and I had nothing to shoot. I had my movie star, all these extras and a great location - and the pages were on their way. So we sat around and bullshitted with the prisoners. Stallone is a smart guy and a very underrated actor. If I ever needed a better line, he’d come up with one. Stallone is a really hard worker. I had no problem whatsoever with him.

Reception

Box office

Lock Up did poorly at the American box office, making $22,099,847 on a budget of $24 million.

Critical

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 17% of twelve surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 4.2/10. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Stallone "defies credibility to the point of inviting unintended laughter." Hal Hinson of The Washington Post wrote, "Lock Up bears the unmistakable mark of a vanity production".

The film was nominated for three Razzie Awards including Worst Picture, Worst Actor for Sylvester Stallone and Worst Supporting Actor for Donald Sutherland, but failed to win any of those categories.

See also

• Escape Plan, another Sylvester Stallone movie set in a prison.

External links

• Lock Up at IMDb
• Lock Up at Rotten Tomatoes