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.
Let's Go to Prison (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:13
Fresh:1
Rotten:12
Average Rating:3.1/10
Consensus: Let's Go to Prison is guilty on all counts of cliched setups, base humor, and failure to ellicit laughs.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, sexual content, some violence and drug material.
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Nov 17, 2006 Wide
Box Office: $4,613,815
Synopsis: When asked about prison movies, the film buff instantly calls to mind epochal pictures such as Cool Hand Luke, The Count of Monte Cristo and Birdman of Alcatraz — or perhaps classics in the making... When asked about prison movies, the film buff instantly calls to mind epochal pictures such as Cool Hand Luke, The Count of Monte Cristo and Birdman of Alcatraz — or perhaps classics in the making like The Shawshank Redemption, In the Name of the Father and The Green Mile. These important works of art have two things in common: 1) they explore the fears and triumphs of unjustly arrested men railing against a cruel system and 2) they serve as a cornerstone of American dramatic cinema. Well...Let's Go To Prison shares one of those tenets. Frankly, we felt obligated to contribute to this genre of filmmaking with our own take on the core issues that inmates routinely face in 2006. While overcrowding and recidivism are topical and vital issues to address, so are other unique themes. In this film, we just happen to have the soap dropping that Steve McQueen never discovered and toilet wine that Dustin Hoffman failed to manufacture in Papillon. Based upon a non fiction book about how to stay out of jail (and/or survive it once you know you're headed upriver), Let's Go To Prison is an uncompromising, no-holdsbarred revenge comedy helmed by BOB ODENKIRK, the director who brought sketchcomedy fans Mr. Show With Bob and David. And he's about to give us everything that's been missing from the typical prison movie in his fresh, probing look at our penal system—rife with plenty of sweet, cloistered, man love. Felon John Lyshitski (DAX SHEPARD, Punk'd, Employee of the Month, Without a Paddle) has figured out the best way to get revenge on the now-dead judge who sent him to jail: "help" the official's obnoxious son, Nelson Biederman the IVth (WILL ARNETT, Arrested Development, RV, Blades of Glory), try to survive the clink. John strikes gold when Nelson is wrongly convicted of a crime and sent to the same penitentiary he used to call home. He gleefully sells pot to undercover cops and gets sent back to become Nelson's cellmate, ensuring that his new buddy gets the full treatment common in American penitentiaries. Let the games begin. Lesson #1: The joint's a scary place, so you better make friends fast. Right away, Nelson offends the wrong cons and is sold—by John—to Barry (CHI McBRIDE, The Nine, The Terminal, Undercover Brother) for prison snuggling. But the moment that revenge starts tasting sweet, Nelson becomes Big Man in the Big House and turns the tables on John...changing the rules of his insane game. November 17, 2006 is the day to shower with thugs, sip toilet wine and sharpen your shivs as the locked-up are set up in Carsey-Werner Films' inaugural title and Strike Entertainment's latest production: Let's Go To Prison, a Universal Pictures release. --© Universal Pictures [More]
Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Dax Shepard, Will Arnett, Chi McBride
Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Dax Shepard, Will Arnett, Chi McBride, Paul Young, Dylan Baker, Michael Shannon, David Koechner
Producer: Marc Abraham, Matt Berenson
Studio: Universal Pictures
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Reviews for Let's Go to Prison
It's hard to get laughs out of stuff that devolved into parody 10 or 20 years ago.
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.
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.
Let's Go to Prison feels like an overextended sketch-comedy idea insufficiently filled out by subsidiary characters (few significantly figure) or standout setpieces.
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.
This really isn't a comedy. It's more of a woolly spoof, stretched out to criminal lengths.
Let's Go to Prison is a sly, very funny comedy that stays admirably deadpan every time you think its about to veer into gross-out territory.
The writers of this movie should be sentenced to a comedy chain gang peeling bananas and making cream pies.
Arnett has seven movies coming out within the next year. It seems safe, or at least optimistic, to assume that this is not going to be his high point. But he does make a consistently amusing Felix to Shepard's frustrated Oscar.
The main crime in this movie is that the whole thing feels lazy -- it's as if they filmed the first draft of a script that still needed some trimming and sharpening.
There's an interestingly ugly social comedy to be made about jail, but Let's Go to Prison isn't it.
The elements of dark comedy, prison system satire, and juvenile gross-out gags eventually blend like the slop ladled out for inmates at feeding time.
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