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How much can a man take? How far can he be pushed before he fights back? This is the premise of Lock Up: A jailhouse battle of wills movie that attempts to portray the harsh realities of the justice system, with enough blood and machoism to feed the blood thirst of action junkies.

Lock Up is perhaps a brutal version of Rocky. Set in the very real Rahway Prison (East Jersey), Stallone plays nice guy Frank Leone, who only wants to do the time for escaping his previous sentence to see his dying step dad. Unfortunately, warden Drumgoole (Donald Sutherland) has other ideas: Dragging Leone from his cell in the middle of night and then transferring him to his maximum security prison, he proceeds to beat him senseless via his corrupt dealings with the bad boy inmates.

With little interest at the time of its release, Lock Up was lost somewhere between Rambo III and Rocky V. Even hardcore Stallone fans rarely give the movie the light of day these days, even though it ranks considerably higher than turkeys such as Judge Dredd or D-Tox.

Lock Up, arguably, is Stallone's most liberal movie, a real test of his character's spirit. Frank Leone may be a prisoner, but he's seen as a typical everyman who takes a real physical and emotional beating by the corrupt prison system here, which is deliberately trying to push him over the edge with all its violent methods. John Flynn does a decent job at developing a hostile atmosphere for the protagonist to suffer, while conflicting characters (particularly Sutherland; John Amos, as the Captain Meissner; and Sonny Landham as Chuck Webner) effectively give him something to work his ego against.

Sure, with it being Sly, it's obvious that he will prevail, but a sadistic fascination with brutality and an admiration for Stallone's own humaneness will keep viewers rooting for his character throughout. There are some heated verbal exchanges and some great hand-to-hand combats that will really get you pumped up for a majority of this movie; over the course of vengeance, you can depict his revengeful urges from the dialogue (“You want me ... you got me,") and feel the impact of his every punch.

Lock Up's story is cliché, far from groundbreaking and definitely isn't pretty, but Stallone's presence, particularly, allows for a rather good ball-busting level of entertainment (check the brutal fight between Leone and three of the guards prior to his escape attempt). One of Stallone's better movies, I'd say, aside from the obvious contenders.

(C) Andy Carrington, 2008.