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Let's Go To Prison (2006)

tomatometer

12

Average Rating: 3/10
Reviews Counted: 41
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 36

Let's Go to Prison is guilty on all counts of cliched setups, base humor, and failure to ellicit laughs.

8

Average Rating: 3.1/10
Critic Reviews: 13
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 12

Let's Go to Prison is guilty on all counts of cliched setups, base humor, and failure to ellicit laughs.

audience

50

liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 119,339

My Rating

Movie Info

Bob Odenkirk's jail comedy Let's Go to Prison!, stars Will Arnett as Nelson Biederman IV, the son of a judge who ends up being sentenced to serve time in Rossmore State Penitentiary. During one of his rare stints out of incarceration, career criminal John Lyshitski (Dax Shepard) learns of the conviction. John holds a grudge against Nelson's father and decides to get his revenge by going back to jail and making Nelson's stay there as horrible as possible. Chi McBride co-stars as a fellow inmate.

R,

Comedy

Mar 6, 2007

$5.5M

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All Critics (41) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (5) | Rotten (37) | DVD (8)

Shepard's character periodically rattles off damning statistics about America's booming prison industry, but most of the gags are of the don't-drop-the-soap variety.

July 28, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's hard to get laughs out of stuff that devolved into parody 10 or 20 years ago.

November 23, 2006 Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Arnett underplays to the point where he seems as shellshocked as his character, while Shepard seems to have forgotten that the film is supposed to be a comedy.

November 20, 2006
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Because the movie can't bring itself to take that leap into full-on absurdity, the characters and comic opportunities stay confined to their cells.

November 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Let's Go to Prison feels like an overextended sketch-comedy idea insufficiently filled out by subsidiary characters (few significantly figure) or standout setpieces.

November 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The movie's too dryly detached to even enjoy its own tastelessness: jokes constantly fall with the dull clatter of cutlery on the mess-hall floor, and the relentless abuse meted out to the hapless Biederman backfires by dint of sheer ritual repetition.

November 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Toronto Star
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Punk'd star in adult jail-house comedy.

January 1, 2011 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media

As a comedy, Bob Odenkirk's penitentiary send-up is bootless.

April 23, 2009 Full Review Source: Boston Phoenix
Boston Phoenix

evern less funny than brothers solomon

April 24, 2008

The short and the sweet of it: Let's Go to Prison is one of the worst pieces of Hollywood garbage I have ever seen.

June 21, 2007 Full Review Source: Calgary Movies
Calgary Movies

...has its share of effective moments - most of which come courtesy of star Will Arnett...

May 17, 2007 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews
Reel Film Reviews

Though sloppily edited like a bad B-movie, this poor man's version of Trading Places will undoubtedly resonate for anyone with a taste for gruesome gallows humor, and a desire to see a spoiled, rich kid get a taste of how the other half lives.

March 27, 2007 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze
NewsBlaze

89 minutes that drag on like, well, a prison sentence.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International
Film Journal International

its off-kilter wit is displayed with stinginess (or is it laziness?).

January 15, 2007 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com
Filmcritic.com

Oh gee, let's not.

December 4, 2006 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review
Sacramento News & Review

Let's not. And say we did.

December 3, 2006 Full Review
Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

Prison makes its 84-minute running time feel like a five-year sentence with no chance for parole.

November 27, 2006 Full Review Source: AV Club
AV Club

Life's too short.

November 22, 2006 Full Review

Consider this one disarmed and extremely pointless.

November 21, 2006 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle

If movies could be punished, Let's Go to Prison would be sent to solitary confinement for impersonating a prison comedy.

November 20, 2006

As crazy and subversive as Let's Go to Prison's makers might believe it to be, it's too undisciplined and predictable to amount to anything

November 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

Audience Reviews for Let's Go To Prison

John Lyshitski: If I had a nickel for every time I've been incarcerated... I'd have fifteen cents. 

"Welcome to the slammer"

Let's Go To Prison is an incredibly stupid, set in prison comedy, with a second rate cast that carry a bad script like this. Will Arnett and Dax Shepard aren't funny enough to carry a bad comedy, and Let's Go To Prison shows that perfectly. There are a few funny moments, and I think I found this funnier than I should have, but there's no deny how truly awful the movie is. 

John is a repeat offender who has been sentenced by the same judge three times. When he gets out of prison for a short time, he wants to get back at the judge. Too bad, the judge just died. So instead, he goes after the judges son. When Nelson(the son) is sentenced to go to prison for a misunderstanding, John goes back to prison on purpose, to make Nelson's life a living nightmare. In prison, we see characters ranging from skinheads to big, black guys that want to violate Nelson. It's all rather routine, and the jokes are hit and miss. Mostly miss. 

There was a time four or five years ago, when I watched this with a friend while passing a bong. Damn we thought it was the funniest thing ever. I watched it again a few years later, and wondered how I could have found it so funny. Now, watching it again, I could barely make it through the whole thing. It isn't a comedy that works well after multiple viewings. Hell, it isn't a comedy that works well for one viewing.

Pretty much just terrible all the way across the board. The jokes are obvious, the characters oddly dull, and the situations seem like they were thought up by some 12 year old. But what should really expect from a comedy that has Will Arnett in a leading role. It can't be good, and it isn't. If there's a reason to watch it, it is to see just how bad comedies can get.
January 28, 2011
blkbomb
Melvin White

Super Reviewer

Welcome to the slammer

Purely a comedy that isn't very funny but entertains at least with some wild crappy things that only in jail could happen. This is just a movie to watch to joke around with your friends while you watch it, it's not meant to take seriously at all.

John Lyshitski is a car stealing slacker, with a weed problem, and has been in Illinois' Rossmore State Penitentiary so many times, he knows it's entire population of both staff and cons by their fast names. Cursed with the old ill luck of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in possession of the wrong car, he's been deemed a lost cause repeat offender in the eyes of everyone else. When the heartless judge, who has been behind most of his sentences, goes to the big court house in the sky, John decides to ruin the man's legacy by having the judge's only offspring, Nelson Biederman IV, thrown in the slammer along with him. Here, the world-class selfish jerk learns a certain old lesson the hard way: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. But has John somewhat gone too far in the payback department?
January 24, 2010
xXGiNoBiLiPRXx
Manu Gino

Super Reviewer

    1. Barry: Eskimo kisses!
    – Submitted by Jennifer R (11 months ago)
    1. John Lyshitski: Under all the swastikas, he's a real prick.
    – Submitted by Francis L (14 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Let's Go (2012) (DE)
  • Let's Go (2012) (UK)
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