Real Life Prison Movies
19 March 2010
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I Love You Phillip Morris sees a return to the big screen for Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor and is the latest true life prison movie.
Carrey stars as Steven Russell who is happily married to Debbie, and a member of the local police force when a car accident provokes a dramatic reassessment of his life.
Steven realises he's gay and decides to live life to the fullest - even if it means breaking the law.
Steven's new, extravagant lifestyle involves cons and fraud and, eventually, a stay in the State Penitentiary where he meets sensitive, soft-spoken Phillip Morris.
His devotion to freeing Phillip from jail and building the perfect life together prompts Steven to attempt and often succeed at one impossible con after another.
So to celebrate the release of the movie we take a look at other prison stories that have made into a movies.
- Bronson
Over the years Charles Bronson has gained the reputation of one of Britain's most dangerous yet intriguing prisoners.
In 1974, a hot-headed 19 year old named Michael Peterson decided he wanted to make a name for himself and so, with a homemade sawn-off shotgun and a head full of dreams he attempted to rob a post office.
Swiftly apprehended and originally sentenced to 7 years in jail, Peterson has subsequently been behind bars for 34 years, 30 of which have been spent in solitary confinement.
It's a brutal and uncompromising movie that's not afraid to show the many aspects of Bronson's personality from artist to very violent criminal. Hardy, who may not have been everyone's first choice for the role deals with these various aspects of Bronson beautifully.
This is not your bog standard biopic picture, a genre of film that we have been so used to seeing of late, as director gives Bronson a more arthouse feel and will be compared to the likes of Clockwork Orange or Chopper.
Dead Man Walking was directed by Tim Robbins and was an adaptation of the book of the same name by Helen Prejean which followed her relationship with a man on death row.
Susan Sarandon takes on the role Prejean while Sean Penn plays convicted killer Matthew Poncelet.
The film is a fascinating and powerful drama explores the relationship between this condemned young convict and the nun who counsels him in the days leading up to his execution.
Only one film before Dead Man Walking, A Short Film About Killing by Krzysztof Kieslowski, and almost non since have tackled the issue of capital punishment so well.
Robbins doesn't give the audience an answer of whether capital punishment is the answer, despite Helen Prejean being against it, leaving the audience to decide for themselves.
It's one of those very rare films that leaves an audience with issues and beliefs to discuss between themselves and question what they believe and why.
- The Great Escape
The movie The Great Escape was based on the book The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill, which is a novelisation of the true story of a mass escape from Stalag Luft III.
The German high command has filtered out all of the allies' most talented escape artists and placed them in a POW camp specifically designed to foil any unwanted departures.
But as soon as they arrive, the prisoners, led by Steve McQueen as the rebellious Virgil Hilts, begin work on a series of tunnels under the direction of Roger "Big X" Bartlett (Richard Attenborough).
He assigns the POWs to jobs according to their specialties. For more than a year, 600 prisoners, most of whom won't be leaving, work toward an escape that will temporarily disrupt the operations of the German army.
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