Prison Heat
Actually I have a beef to pick with this movie. I'm fairly certain that any Turk that watches it will be outraged. Not one Turkish character was portrayed with any redeeming features. Did we go to war with Turkey and no one told me about it? I mean, you don't make an entire country look bad unless you plan on dropping bombs on them or something. Geez, I don't think the Bosnians have been treated like this in the movies. (But maybe they have...its not like I've seen every movie ever made...that's Dr. Psy's job...)
Four young female American students, Michelle, Bonnie, Colleen and Audrey are on some kind of vacation or school trip in Greece. (Greece? You know, I've seen advisories that kind of tell me NOT to go to Greece because of alleged terrorist problems. Then again, I don't know jack [unwrite] about Greece either except stories of Mount Olympus and Hercules and stuff....) Any way, the girls decide to drive to nearby Turkey in a rented van for a weekend of partying. Now I've already clarified that I don't know [unwrite] about Turkey....so someone tell me...is it like, a party place? I mean, what's the deal in Turkey? Do they have a lot of clubs? Hey, I'm only asking and it doesn't matter much since the girls no sooner cross the border than they are arrested on trumped up drug charges.
Oh, yeah, of course they're innocent. We the audience see the corrupt border guards placing the drugs in the vehicle. The scheme is to get the girls into a prison run by the Evil Warden (Akim, I think, was his name) so they can be sold into slavery. I'll tell you the truth...I don't know really if Audrey or Michelle was the obligatory black character. I only know who Colleen and Bonnie were. Colleen is the 'leader' of the group. Bonnie, having the biggest boobs is the one we see nude the most and the one that gets raped not only by the Warden and by the lesbian amazon woman prisoner, Selena. These girls react to their imprisonment....quite well. Sure, they're upset, but its a subdued upset considering the circumstances. No one knows where they are...they aren't allowed any contact with the embassy or the outside in general...and they've had NO TRIAL. The Evil Warden tells them that the courts are very busy so it may be months until they get a trial. Yeah, right.
As I said the girls take all of this with a "This is [unwrite]ed up. We need to find a way to get out of here, but for now lets tough it out" attitude. I don't know about you, but I'd be a little more upset. Yeah, sure they want to get out, but they don't actually do ANYTHING about getting out legal or otherwise until we have seen various boob shots, a few rapes and the part where Colleen confronts Selena in the shower (nude of course) basically forcing her to lay off of Bonnie. (which confirms my suspected idea that pretty girls with big boobs get pampered to the point where they can't stick up for themselves at all....hey, maybe that's not a PC statement, but so what.) Colleen finally formulates an escape plan when she's thrown into solitary...with another prisoner...(Oh, I'll get to that below) and learns that Akim is running a white slavery ring. The other prisoner informs her that she and her friends will be sold to Arab sheiks as pleasure toys...to paraphrase this other prisoner they'll be [unwrite]ed in every orifice on their bodies until they have every disease known and are burnt out wrecks. ICK! Naturally, Colleen decides "We REALLY do have to get the [unwrite] out of here.".
What took her so long to figure that out? They know they've been framed. They haven't had a trial and they aren't allowed to contact anyone on the outside. The prison guards and warden are cartoonishly corrupt. If I were a woman in that situation, I'd kind of realize that the only reason I'm in the predicament is that someone really really really wants to [unwrite] me. When Selena hears about the escape plan she throws in with Colleen and her gang. That's mostly because someone HAS to die in the attempt and I kind of knew it wasn't going to be one of the original cast. After all, the black chick didn't get enough screen time to have a death that would mean anything other than the usual minority character dies thing. Bonnie tried to kill herself but her friends stopped her so I knew she wasn't going to die after that.
I didn't hate this movie. Hell, I enjoyed the gratuitous boob shots. But that's about all it has to offer. The characters kind of pissed me off in their inability to deal with the fact that they are being railroaded. I'm not saying that things like this don't happen....for all I know they might be happening now...but I'll be damned if someone would frame me that easily. Plus I can't believe that no one...not one single person...wondered where the girls were. They must have been missing for at least a month. Oh, I'll be nice and say two weeks. But if I disappeared for two weeks I know someone would at least try to find out what happened to me.
So, my friends, what we have is a movie that really was made only to show boobs and that's it. The one thing I can say in their favor is at least they were nice boobs.
Best Lines: "Bonnie, its nobody's fault...would you shut your crack?."-One of the girls tells Bonnie to stop complaining about being imprisoned.ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:
1.)
Lets get into this "no one knows where they are schtick". Lets say your Sister/ Cousin/ Girlfriend is in Greece on some kind of trip. Lets say that slightly before she is to return home she suddenly disappears. No one knows where she is. She is in reality being held in a Turkish prison. Well, if it was my sister/cousin/girlfriend I'd start making calls. I'd probably hire an investigator, Id certainly involve the authorities and I'd probably go look for them the best I could. Ok, I go look for them. The hotel says they checked out. Unless they're using cash for everything I can find out what they spent their money on. What's this....a credit card bill to rent a van? Hmmm..last time I rented a car they asked me where I intended to go...and I stayed in ONE country. So I'm guessing that if I were to rent a van in Greece to drive to Turkey it would be documented somewhere. And even if they used Travelers Checks to pay for it, that's traceable. And even if they used cash wouldn't any reasonably smart investigator have bothered to check if they rented a vehicle anywhere. (Let alone that someone probably saw them load up the vehicle...which said RENT A VAN on the side at whatever hotel they were staying in) Ok, so I find out they went to Turkey. I call hospitals and police stations of course. So unless every official in Turkey is a cartoony corrupt villain that only lives to screw big busted American chicks someone is going to find out about the RENT A VAN that's still in the prison PARKING LOT!!!!! Actually I don't have to go much further than that...because unless the movie is telling me that all Turks are corrupt the jig is up. The only explanation I can think of is that all of the girls have absolutely no one on the face of the earth that cares about them.2.)
Oh, let me emphasize something...the RENT A VAN is in the prison parking lot. Didn't the rental company want their van back?3.)
What kind of prison lets you keep your personal items. The girls have jewelry, their clothes all kinds of crap that they had with them in this prison. Not to mention they all dress like their going to the beach or the mall. Do women's prisons let you keep this stuff and dress like that? Man, that's sweet. Well, only if the girls all look like these girls....young and hot. NUDITY AND SEX: Its a women in prison movie! What do you think!? HUH?: "We have rights! we're American Citizens!" is what Colleen says when they're arrested and the Warden demands that they undress in front of him. Why do people always say that in these kinds of situations? It occurs to me that that's the last thing you want to say unless you have so way of backing it up. Yes, the girls were unjustly arrested, but you have to realize...if you're in a foreign country you're under their laws. I can't go down town in Stuttgart make a fuss and complain that the police beat me up for it by exclaiming "I'm an American!". So [unwrite]ing what? American rights are...AMERICAN. If you ain't in America you can't hide behind the Constitution! Remember a few years ago when some dickhead kids were in jail in Bangladesh or some other crazy place for passing out literature promoting democracy? People were all upset about the harsh sentence they received. Look, these nimrods went there and did something against the law in that country...and they KNEW it was against the law there. I was pissed off that they got off the sentence. I might not like the laws in another country but that's not my business. If it was up to me those morons would still be making big rocks into small ones because THEY KNEW...I repeat...KNEW it was against the law to do what they did there.Colleen is thrown into solitary. With another prisoner. Think about that. I guess I should tell you that she's warned of the horrible tortures of solitary before she goes in. Yeah, well all they did was sit her on the floor and chain her arms up. With another person. In solitary. Who wrote this?
A prisoner that the girls befriend gives them a key to cell door on her death bed. A KEY!? She had a [unwrite]ing key? If she had this key its incomprehensible that she wouldn't have tried to escape! Even if this woman was very sick and dying (which to me is more incentive to ESCAPE) she needn't do it on her own. She could have made a deal way before her death with Colleen or a plethora of other prisoners to help her get out if she provides the means.
THE TALLY: On one hand I'm pissed at this movie and on the other I'm not. Its just an excuse to show titties, but the undertone of racism bugs me. I don't personally know any Turks, but they really got reamed in this one. I find that unfair. Hell, I don't know any people from say, Greenland or Uganda. But its unfair to portray them all as being idiots or corrupt etc. The Inferno's final verdict? 3 devils and to be honest, thats only because of the boobs.