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The Film: 3/5
A month ago, I reviewed the new Blu-ray release of the late Jamaa Fanaka’s seminal action-drama Penitentiary. It was my first time watching the film and needless to say I was floored. Fanaka made a gripping and socially relevant work of pulverizing pulp cinema that didn’t just rise above its modest B-movie expectations, it fucking soared to the heavens and flipped the entire planet the bird. Made for a paltry $100,000, Penitentiary was a mightily profitable box office hit for its distributor The Jerry Gross Organization (the same company that also handled the U.S. theatrical releases of I Spit On Your Grave and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie) and a sequel was all but inevitable.
Three years, with the confident backing of the filmmaker-friendly studio United Artists (which had recently been swallowed up by MGM following the disastrous release of Michael Cimino’s infamously troubled epic western Heaven’s Gate), Fanaka stepped back behind the camera for Penitentiary II with a slightly increased budget and returning star Leon Isaac Kennedy ready to put his boxing gloves on for a few more rounds of sweaty brawling. Kennedy’s signature character Martel “Too Sweet” Gordone, imprisoned in the original for a murder he didn’t commit, joined the prison’s boxing program and battled his way to an early release on the condition that he continue competing in the ring. He seemed okay with that decision in the final scenes of Penitentiary, but by the time the sequel rolled around, Gordone had changed his mind and now wanted to leave a nice, peaceful life.
Penitentiary II opens (following a bizarre, Star Wars-like exposition crawl that catches up anyone who didn’t catch the original on the story so far) with Too Sweet staying with his sister Ellen (Peggy Blow), her prominent attorney husband Charles (Glynn Turman, who had initially been cast as Too Sweet in the original before he bowed out and was replaced by Kennedy), and their son Charles Jr. (Sephton Moody) in a lovely Los Angeles home. By day, he works as a roller-skating delivery man; by night, he returns to the warm and loving embrace of his gorgeous gal Clarisse (Eugenia Wright). The people who helped secure him an early release from the clink want him to return to the boxing rink and do what he was put on this miserable rock to do, but Too Sweet ain’t having any of it.
Now, if you’re like me and you’ve seen a movie or two with plots that begin this way, you might think you know how this is all going to play out. You’d be somewhat right and very wrong. Usually, I don’t mind at all when a conventional plot takes off in daring and subversive new directions, but the plot of Penitentiary II begins to stumble and drool like a boxer who has taken a few too many punches to the skull once Too Sweet’s former cellmate and permanent nemesis Half-Dead returns to resume making our hapless hero’s life miserable. Played with searing, monstrous intensity by the late Badja Djola in the original, the role of Half-Dead was recast with an energetically game Ernie Hudson in one of his earliest breakthrough performances.
Looking like he’s still pissed off from seeing Neil Diamond’s blackface number in that Jazz Singer remake, the future Ghostbuster and prison warden on the HBO series Oz goes way over the top to make Half-Dead a bulging-eyed, cackling villain. Hudson brings a metric ton of teeth-gnashing menace to the role, but his cartoonish performance lacks the pathetic, damaged humanity of Djola’s classic portrayal of the character. Having broken out of prison not long after Too Sweet was released, Half-Dead now cruises the L.A. streets with his disposable goons Simp (Marvin Jones) and Do Dirty (Cepheus Jaxon), looking for his opportunity to get some sweet revenge on Martel. He starts out by raping and murdering Clarisse in the film’s single most unpleasant scene.
What follows is a motel bathroom brawl between Too Sweet and Half-Dead that goes on longer than the nude male wrestling match in Ken Russell’s Women in Love and doubles the homoeroticism (only unintentionally in this case, or is it?). The police arrive and Clarisse’s killer is taken into police custody, which is all the inspiration Too Sweet needs to …get back in the ring and become the world champion? That becomes his one and only goal for the rest of the movie, even when Simp and Do Dirty break Half-Dead out of the hospital room where he’s under police guard so the unhinged maniac can bring his plan of total violent vengeance to fruition.
Well not really. From that moment on, Half-Dead is never treated by Fanaka (who also wrote the screenplay, as he did for the original) as anything but a nuisance to pop up from time to time and annoy Too Sweet – at one point he tries to choke his old cellmate while wearing a clown wig! - in the midst of his journey to become the champ. A journey, it must be said, that consists of two matches with Jesse “The Bull” Amos (Donovan Womack, also returning from the first Penitentiary), the former prison gang leader Too Sweet once fought to win his freedom. To get back into prime fighting condition, Too Sweet turns to professional boxing trainer Mr. T (played by Mr. T), while Half-Dead just sort of hangs around the scenery, waiting for his next chance to flare his nostrils and issue idle threats against a hero who couldn’t give less of a shit if he tried.
Speaking of not giving a shit, Fanaka allows several plot threads to dangle in the wind while he peppers the sequel with random bits of nonsense and more than a few scenes that run longer than necessary (this movie should not have been 108 minutes long). The first Penitentiary was a lean and effective entertainment with bullet train pacing that allowed for welcome character beats to coexist in perfect harmony with the action sequences, but the sequel lacks forward narrative momentum – a near-fatal flaw that can’t be concealed by the excess filler scenes. Fanaka and cinematographer Stephen L. Posey (Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning) aim to recreate the dynamic look of the original with mixed results; they saturate the proceedings with scorching blue and pink hues that liven up the more lackluster moments but contribute little else, and the persistent uncomfortable close-ups don’t add much either. Plus, the raw intensity of the original fails to be replicated.
The inconsistent tone of Penitentiary II causes the usually reliable acting to suffer as well. Kennedy bravely tries to make the attempts at growth in Too Sweet convincing, and though he retains his movie star charisma and presence during the boxing scenes and training montages, he just isn’t good enough of an actor to handle the overemoting and mawkish sentimentality with which Fanaka saddles him. When he makes a play for verbalizing Too Sweet’s torment and sadness, he resembles an inexperienced drama school student. Thankfully, Fanaka wises up in the second half and keeps his magnetic lead in the ring, throwing punches and spitting blood, where he dominates. The rest of the cast, apart from Mr. T (who is never not awesome – FACT), are given moments here and there to demonstrate passable acting quality. The most interesting appearances come from Tony Cox (Bad Santa) as a diminutive dice hustler trying to scrape together enough cash to buy himself a night of sweet lovin’ with a lovely lady at Too Sweet’s fights, and Rudy Ray Moore – the mighty Dolemite himself – griping about the noise Gordone and his entourage make outside his apartment while he’s trying to sleep.
My first viewing of the original Penitentiary was like a shock to the system and I loved the sensation. Fanaka captured lightning in a bottle with that film, but fortune clearly did not favor him with the sequel. Penitentiary is one of the best B-movies ever made and one of the high-water marks of 1970’s black filmmaking. It was an exploitation film with the soul of the black experience in America, but Penitentiary II is just soulless exploitation. On a normal day, I might be cool with that, but I expected a little better from Jamaa Fanaka, may he rest in peace. At least the movie is never less than mindlessly entertaining dreck.
Audio/Video: 3.5/5
Vinegar Syndrome scanned the original 35mm camera negative of Penitentiary II in 2K resolution for the latest Blu-ray release of one of their Xenon Films acquisitions. The 1080p high-definition transfer is presented in the film’s original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio and comes AVC encoded. The end result of Vinegar Syndrome’s restoration efforts is impressive to say the least. Free of dirt, grit, and other traces of print damage, picture quality comes alive with reenergized texture, blazingly beautiful colors, and deep and visible black levels. Skin tones are accurate and improved detail is present in foreground and background shots and close-ups. Faring not as well is the 24-bit English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono track, which does what it can with the heavily flawed original sound elements but is sadly unable to make up for the audio’s lack of dynamic range and overabundance of muffled, tinny dialogue. There is much central activity in the mix as the dialogue, music, and sound effects are often forced to battle it out for soundtrack dominance, but with frequent audibility and a pleasurable lack of distortion the track isn’t a total loss. The soundtrack receives its very own isolated Dolby Digital 1.0 track and the results are a mixed bag that won’t have you switching to this audio option much. English subtitles have also been provided.
Extras: 3/5
Ported over from previous DVD releases of Penitentiary II are an archival commentary track and video interview with writer-director Fanaka (who passed away in April 2012). The commentary suffers from an excess of dead air, but Fanaka’s recollections of the production are vivid and always relevant. The video interview “In the Raw” (28 minutes) is much better as it allows him to talk in great detail about the origins of the sequel and the rough road he traveled to making it a reality with few pauses. Fanaka also pays tribute to his parents who helped him finance the first film, discusses a potential fourth Penitentiary he had been enticing Snoop Dogg to join, and speaks with honesty and emotion about his ongoing battle with diabetes.
Produced exclusively for this release, “Too Sweet for the Outside” (16 minutes) brings back star Kennedy to offer his own remembrances of making Penitentiary II with great candor. While the sequel’s development was in a holding pattern as the rights were still being sorted out, Kennedy wrote and starred in a remake of Body & Soul for Cannon Films. Withheld funding from new distributor United Artists resulted in the roles of Half-Dead and Seldom Seen being recast, and Kennedy himself would have also gotten the ax had the studio not come to their senses and met his demand for a meager salary increase. Once the production was back on, he and Fanaka sought out Mr. T for a key supporting role, sensing that Rocky III was about to make him a star. Kennedy’s interview is full of terrific stories like these, and my only complaint with the featurette is that it should have been longer.
The original theatrical trailer (2 minutes) concludes the extras selection on this Blu-ray. Also included are a DVD copy and reversible cover art.
Overall: 3/5
Penitentiary II is a major letdown when compared to the brilliant original, but writer-director Jamaa Fanaka and a cast ready for anything inject enough lurid energy and shameless fun to make this inferior sequel worth at least a single viewing. Add to that Vinegar Syndrome’s outstanding HD transfer and a combination of new and archival supplements and you have yourself a recommended Blu-ray.
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