Review of Lock Up

Introduction

This prison survival actioner stars Sylvester Stallone as a petty criminal who made “one mistake” and is made to suffer by the system. Donald Sutherland turns up as a sadistic prison governor who is determined to gain revenge on Stallone for his previous escape attempt. Can he survive? The plot is fairly routine, but is executed with enough testosterone to please any action fan. Tom Sizemore also appears here, as Stallone’s best buddy.

Video

This anamorphic 1.85:1 print miles better than any VHS or broadcast print I have ever seen before – the remastering has visably made for a sharper and cleaner picture. The colours are a little muted, but I put that down to typical 1980’s cinematography.

Audio

Unfortunately only a 2.0 surround track is included here. DD 5.1 would have been nice, but I suppose the returns on a title like this would not have warranted the cost of a remixed track. Still, the dialogue is clear so I can’t really fault the sound that much.

Features

There are quite a lot of features here, but unfortunately the quantity far outweighs the quality. The best extra is the featurette, mostly containing interviews with cast and crew. This lasts 6 minutes. The behind-the-scenes is some rough on-set footage, lasting 8 mins.

After this, there’s not much else to talk about. The interviews are basically all the footage from the featurette regurgitated, so is pretty much pointless. The Sly profile is very brief, clocking in at 3 mins. There is a small photo gallery too, but that’s all. However, at least the disc is not missing anything present on any other regions, and the menus are nicely animated.

Conclusion

Lock Up is a very underrated movie, and is one of Stallone’s best - if that is anything to judge good movies by. The film is best when it concentrates on Stallone’s suffering and his refusal to obey orders – Lock Up has a lot of influences from prison movies such as Escape from Alcatraz, Coolhand Luke, and The Prisoner TV series. The drama sub-plot about wanting to start a new life etc. is a little cheesier.