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Penitentiary [DVD]

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Leon Isaac Kennedy (Actor), Wilbur Hi-Fi White (Actor), Jamaa Fanaka (Director) Rated: Suitable for 18 years and over Format: DVD
3.8 out of 5 stars 4 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Actors: Leon Isaac Kennedy, Wilbur Hi-Fi White, Mr T, Thommy Pollard, Ernie Hudson
  • Directors: Jamaa Fanaka
  • Format: PAL
  • Language: English
  • Region: All Regions
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 18
  • Studio: Arrow Films
  • DVD Release Date: 13 Feb. 2012
  • Run Time: 99 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B006J68DI0
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 93,910 in DVD & Blu-ray (See Top 100 in DVD & Blu-ray)

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Product Description

Product Description

There's only one way out, and 100 fools stand in the way!

Too Sweet likes three things... Candy bars, makin love and fighting. Arrested while defending a beautiful hooker in a roadside diner brawl, he finds himself unjustly incarcerated in a violent prison hellhole where life is cheap and punks get owned by predatory lifers. There s only one way out... Victory in the ring!

Now Too Sweet has to fight for his freedom in series of boxing battles, all the while watching his back in the prison corridors, waiting for the cold sting of the shiv that might end his life.

Experience Jamaa Fanaka s extraordinary grindhouse classic Which is arguably the last great Blaxploitation flick and pray to God you never end up somebody s bitch in the PENITENARY!

From Amazon.co.uk

Penitentiary is the first of many in a series depicting the harrowing prison existence of a convict who uses his wits and fists to survive. Leon Isaac Kennedy's character is thrown deep into the bowels of the prison system, where the only consistent truth is kill or be killed. To show his strength and gain respect from the other inmates, Kennedy must distinguish himself as a boxer, taking on all comers to save his own skin and regain his pride as a human being. Surprisingly effective in its harsh detailing of violent prison life, the film addresses the dehumanization of prisoners without excusing their crimes. Thought of as an exploitation picture, Penitentiary rises above its roots to provide a blunt and passionate look at one man's struggle on the inside. --Robert Lane --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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4.0 out of 5 starsTrying not to take it in the ring!
By Arch Stanton on 12 Jan. 2013
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
A young drifter gets sent down for a crime he didn't commit and has to use his fists in order to not be passed around like currency. He quickly joins the inmates boxing club and starts to float like a butterfly, making friends and enemies in the process but when a lucrative offer comes around in the form of a boxing tournament, where horny jail tramps and freedom are the prize, will he have the moves in order to be 'hey number one'..?
Amusing boxing comedy with elements of drama and erm. . . brotherly love. Ive never been a big fan of prison movies but this is a good enough entry in the subgenre and its easy to see why it led to a couple of sequels. The acting is a bit ropey (pun intended!) but the dialogue and action is champion (pun also intended), with a light hearted, yet frank and at times brutal directorial eye. The old trainer dude steals the show and some of the hairstyles are worth there (considerable) weight in gold. Despite the fact that there are indeed a lot of sweaty men in this, it's actually quite good and much better than some reviews, which are a little below the belt (sorry!), would have you believe..
I got the Arrow version with the purple cover, which also seems to include Penitentiary 2 as bonus!! Thats right, the full movie! Cheers Arrow! However i haven't watched this yet, so a confirmation update will soon follow! Recommended to fans of american exploitation movies (or people that like watching sweaty men hit one another!).
Update: Yep this version contains both the first and second Penitentiary films. But the print on the sequel could've been better.
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4.0 out of 5 starsGood Release.
By I love New York VINE VOICE on 19 Mar. 2012
Format: DVD
A classic low budget Boxing Prison movie that get's a good release from Arrow.

Penitentiary is low budget and also a great advert for people not to end up in Prison (especially American ones) unless you can seriously look after yourself. Shot on a miniscule budget mainly on the campus of UCLA and a derelict unused prison it looks better than it should even with some not so great acting.

The release contains an interesting Directors commentary and a feature on Penitentiary 2 (not sure why it doesn't include one for this movie) and that is pretty much it.

Since it is a budget release by Arrow and is priced as such it's still a good release.

4 stars from me.
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4.0 out of 5 starsSome good comedy moments in the fight scenes
By Wayne Fergie on 21 Feb. 2015
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
This was a purchase to replace a VHS copy so I knew what I was getting when I purchased. Some good comedy moments in the fight scenes.
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3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars
By headbanger230 on 29 Oct. 2015
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
IT WAS OK
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com: HASH(0x8e986714) out of 5 stars 36 reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
HASH(0x8e9003e4) out of 5 stars PENITENTIARY IS AN OLD-SKOOL KNOCK OUT!!!! 24 Nov. 2007
By Ms Michele - Published on Amazon.com
Format: DVD
Wow, what memories; this movie is definately a cult classic. I remember going to the movies (I'm in Detroit) once every weekend to see this as long as it was at the Madison Theatre (not a theatre anymore). "Half-Dead" had a pretty successful career after this but I don't see any more of the cast anywhere. The warden was "Porky" in the Porky's movie; I believe Leon Isaac Kennedy learned the truth in Christ. Anyway, enough rambling....want a memory??? Pick this up!!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
HASH(0x8e900438) out of 5 stars Most Realistic Prison Movie Ever! 10 Mar. 2006
By Seldom Seen - Published on Amazon.com
Format: DVD
Penitentiary. Wow! This is not your average, run of the mill, candy-coated prison movies. Be sure to fasten your seatbelt before taking off on this journey. After seeing it for the first time, it shocked me because I wasn't ready. However, after that, I basically became hooked. I simply cannot get enough of Penitentiary. The fight seen between Half Dead Johnson and Too sweet is the best raw, street fight type of battle you will ever witness on screen. The "Crazy Man" game, when Too Sweet jumped on Big Jesse, the (heterosexual) orgies in the bathroom, the final bout . . . I could go on and on about this movie, but I'll end here by saying if you are a fan of prison movies, you simply can't go wrong with Penitentiary. Too Sweet is the Man!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
HASH(0x8e900870) out of 5 stars Don't get locked up unless you can fight 12 Mar. 2009
By R. Allen - Published on Amazon.com
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
This movie will make anyone clean up their act and get straight to keep from getting locked up. Either that or it will make you want to become a boxer in the slammer so you can hook up with chicks. This movie has some memorable scenes that will have you rolling. One of the rare times that the nickname "Too Sweet" in prison doesn't mean you are someones girlfriend.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
HASH(0x8e900858) out of 5 stars Violence, Sex and Prison 26 Nov. 2010
By J. Lewis - Published on Amazon.com
Format: DVD
"Penitentiary" appeared in 1979, at the end of the blaxploitation movie era, and has some of the hallmarks the genre: a few wooden performances and rather poor production values. It's nonetheless an excellent film. T Donovan Womack as "Jesse" the prison shot-caller, Badja Djola as "Half Dead" and a few others compensate for the wooden performances. The real authenticity of the movie compensates for it low-budget production values. Wherever director-writer Jamaa Fanaka got it, he clearly had reliable information about his topic.

The theme running through "Penitentiary" is a prison gang's attempt to convert a young new inmate who they dub "Too Sweet" into their sex-slave through rape, an effort foiled when the intended victim defeats and in turn sodomizes his anointed rapist, "Half-Dead." A sub-plot involves the relationship between the shot-caller "Jesse" and his prison wife Eugene, renamed "Jenny" after he is turned-out. It closely follows the realities of prison sex and sexuality, including the nuances of how sex, violence and love can get fused and confused. Thus we see a scene of extreme violence when "Jesse" brutally beats "Jenny" for standing over instead of sitting down on the toilet while urinating -- defying his role as "wife" and substitute female by committing a uniquely masculine act -- followed later by "Jesse's" half-apology in which he tells "Jenny" that "you all I got." The hard, brutal and ruthless prison gang leader had fallen in love with his victim. At another moment, one inmate quibs to another who's been knocked out in an organized boxing match, "how am I gonna get some pu--y with you laying on your back?"

"Penitentiary" is full of moments like these which anyone familiar with the research on prison sexuality will recognize as absolutely true. These are easy to miss or misunderstand for those who are not familiar with the nuances of prison realities, or who have been mislead about it by some academic misunderstandings of it inspired by feminist theory applied to male prison situations ("rape is not about sex, it's about power" -- BS, at least in prison!). This indeed is a film worth watching.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
HASH(0x8e900d20) out of 5 stars It's like a ...heartbeat! 4 Nov. 2011
By J. O. Booker - Published on Amazon.com
Format: DVD Verified Purchase
What can I say? This movie brings back some old memories. Back in the day when me and my buddies would sit around my 13 inch TV set smoking, drinking, checking out this flick on video tape and rewinding it over and over to the funny parts like the brother with the broken cigarette sticking out his ear; the part when Big Jess clocks "Genie" for standing up to use the toilet; the part where the brothers are out in the yard dancing; the part where an inmate planning to rape another inmate says to his partner: "relax, Dead. Wait a few days, so we can set the booty up right."

This is "the" buddy movie for me growing up in my late teens. Basically, it's about a brother named Too Sweet who is set up and goes down for killing a racist hillbilly. Once he's sent up to the 'pen, the film becomes about survival and maintaining his sense of who and what he is against predators, like Half-Dead, probably the ugliest dude in the history of motion pictures, and homosexuals who have surrendered their manhood. But Too Sweet is a fighter both in his cell and also in the boxing-for-booty tournaments that take place in the film. His only friend is an institutionalized old head with a white fro named Hezekiah who has long stopped dreaming of being free and "deals with the meat" inside the walls.

This is one of the best Black films ever made and one of the best films about prison life, if not the funniest.
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