Oz

Prison seems like a real scary place.  But movies about prison are real enjoyable.  I don’t know why but movies like The Shawshank Redemption, Cool Hand Luke, In the Name of the Father and Escape from Alcatraz are really awesome.  Except The Green Mile, that was boring.  Oh yeah and Life.  Trying to make fun of prison just doesn’t fly.  Although it was kinda funny in Naked Gun 33 1/3.  Anyway, Oz.

I think I can safely say that there has never been a show like Oz.  There’s prison reality shows like Lockup (not to be confused with the great Stallone flick of the same name) which are informative but don’t follow a narrative.  I guess there’s Prison Break but I think that’s mostly about breaking out of jail and doesn’t focus solely on what’s going on inside the prison.  Nope, Oz is it.  The final frontier (as far as prison shows go).

“Oz.  The word on the street for the Oswald State Penitentiary”, was on HBO from 1997-2003 so they were allowed to do basically whatever they wanted and they took that to heart.  It’s about, well, prison.  But this ain’t your normal prison.  In this place they built a special wing dubbed “Em city” dedicated to an experimental type of prison.  One where the inmates live not behind bars, but behind plexiglass and are allowed to roam free throughout the giant community area where everyone plays cards, talks about shit, watches TV and other stuff.  This special area is run by Terry Kinney (The Firm, Sleepers) while the warden is played by Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, The Crow, Congo).  But I’m not sure what the grand scheme is behind this more freeing set up than the conventional type.  Well whatever it is it fails miserably because all these prisoners do is deal drugs, rape, fight and kill each other.  Not really the signs of success (at least for non-prisoners).

The reason why this show is probably the best show I’ve ever seen is because of the characters and the ever changing story lines between them.  This show is never, and I mean never, boring.  This is the ultimate show for people with ADD or even those that don’t have ADD but just get bored kind of easily.  There are too many characters to name and too many plot lines to give you a good idea of what really happens on the show or where it goes but I’ll try.

Ok, so I guess the biggest story that happens throughout the series is between Beecher played by Lee Tergesen (lots of TV shit) and Schillinger played by J.K. Simmons (Juno, Spider-Man).  Beecher is in Oz because he killed a girl while driving drunk and Schillinger is in there because he beat up a black drug dealer.  Oh, and he’s also the head of the Aryan Brotherhood.  Schillinger rapes Beecher and makes him his bitch because Beecher is just a regular guy who fucked up bad, so he doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.  All through the series they fight and keep their hatred for each other alive and kicking.

Aside from that there’s so much shit that happens it would take me a year to sort it all out again.  I mean, someone dies every episode.  This show kills characters off like Schwarzenegger at the end of Commando.  Whenever a character dies they’re pretty much never mentioned again either.  So get with it or get out.  Every episode feels like it could be the finale to any regular series but for Oz it’s just another day in paradise.  This doesn’t mean that we don’t see people evolve and develop.  No, no, no.  There’s plenty of complex characters that trade sides and conjure up schemes and all sorts of shit.  The plots for these characters are never very complicated which is good because then it would be impossible to follow but in fact it’s crystal clear.  Whenever they switch to another person’s plot line I would always say to myself, “Oh yeah.  What’s going on with this guy?  I forgot that he got a hold of a gun or that he started taking drugs again or that these guys are plotting against some other rival gang.” 

Right, so just like in real prison (?) everyone stays within their race.  There are the brothers, the Aryans, the Muslims, the Irish, El Norte, the wise guys and some other random guys.  But having all of these characters separated like this creates a situation where there’s a constant power struggle.  All of these gangs want to be on top and hatch ways (kill people) to get there.  Like I said before, this is the perfect set up for pure meaty, prison, bad ass pleasure.  It even gets to the point where some characters have more than one plot line going.  But, again like I said, it never gets confusing.  This is a testament to how meticulously and brilliantly crafted this show is.  You really feel like you’re in there with the prisoners, like there’s no escape.  The only time when you see anything outside of Oz is when they show you what crime a character committed to get into Oz.  And even then you barely leave “Em city”.

If you like sensational shit like murder, drugs and dudes raping dudes then this is the show for you.  I can’t really recommend it enough.  They made a show that said, “Fuck it.  We’re on HBO, let’s do whatever we want.”  It’s an aggressive show that comes on strong so I don’t think this is for everyone.  But for those who do like it upon first viewing will love it.     

(for more prison movies check out www.prisonmovies.net)