Buzz Kulik's pulpy, lurid Riot, an R-rated glob of clichéd prison- flick trash shows us two things:
1. Since this would be PG-13 now, with almost dirty language, sort- of naked prisoners being beaten, sparing gouts of blood, and way, way too much of a gay prisoner doing a bump and grind in his cell, one can marvel at how our tolerance of crudity has risen over the last five decades. Kulik must have been in constant combat with the standards and practices folks at Paramount, either to put more movies-sure-are-different adult stuff in this story of a riot masking an escape in an Arizona prison, or to clean this thing up, now!
2. Kulik's ability to take such a nasty, ugly, and pretty-much stupid prison-break story and infuse it with a professionalism the movie doesn't deserve is a testament to his talent. Jim Brown and Gene Hackman, along with a number of recognizable character actors and a whole bunch of real-life inmates are either catatonic or chew up scenery at an alarming rate. The stuff that comes out of their mouths could only be called dialogue in the most general sense of the word. In other words, Riot is a blob of sweat-covered clichés that, for some reason, is watchable enough to keep watching. Go figure!
I saw Riot the first time in, I think, 1973 when ABC showed it during the summer down-time. I could tell the movie had about a third lopped out for all the crudities and nudities and other prisonese. I could only imagine what the little old ladies with the pinking shears and the blue hair at ABC were snipping out, but I thought it was a pretty fearsome movie anyway.
Now, I just marvel at how far Riot pushes the edge of the envelope.
It's still a crappy movie, but it's also a snapshot of what a movie studio was willing to allow for public consumption, way back when you couldn't say "damn" on TV.
