Let's Go to Prison feels like an overextended sketch-comedy idea insufficiently filled out by subsidiary characters (few significantly figure) or standout setpieces.
Let's Go to Prison (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:40
Fresh:4
Rotten:36
Average Rating:2.9/10
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
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.
Let's Go to Prison announces its desperation right from the opening credits, thanks to a montage of celebrity mug shots and arrest footage suggesting there are still laughs to be had at James Brown and Martha Stewart's expense.
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.
It is awful, unfunny and moronic. And that applies to the best bits. Most of the movie is even worse.
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.
This movie’s 90-minute run time definitely feels like too long of a sentence.
There's an interestingly ugly social comedy to be made about jail, but Let's Go to Prison isn't it.
It has laughs, it has some cleverness, and it has a lot of problems. But it's not 'bad,' exactly. 'Dysfunctional' is more like it.
A comedy of tremendous miscalculation that doesn't even have the conviction of its own stupidity.
A clueless, pointless, unfunny dud. The kind of movie where one can tell that the actors already know they're making a piece of crap.
Since this stars Dax Shepard, a more appropriate title for Prison might've been Relentlessly Awful, Laugh-Free, Cinematic Torture Device.
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.
The sad thing is that Arnett, Shepard and McBride quickly establish a loose, easy camaraderie that's a real pleasure to watch. The shame is that they're working with such unrewarding material.
Odenkirk’s visual sense ain’t the greatest, but he definitely knows funny.
Should have been titled Let's Go to DVD, where it will clearly move with unbecoming alacrity, and where it will be much more at home. Though, one hopes, not yours.
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