User reviews

This movie really hit the spot, it is made to be a moody movie and acheives that. The only scene that shows any hope for the characters is the prison break. the rest is pure dispair. there are beatings, rape, a suicide and even a transvestite.

Like another user said in a comment, it really shows that prisons do not really rehabilitate inmates. Like other prison movies such as the Shawshank Redemption that it destroys the human spirit instead.

wished that we saw more great movies like this from quebec. The industry is having a hard time due to the fact the movies generally do not do well in france because of the language barrier.

real hard movie.

good quebec production

Charlotte Laurier performs a very nice strip. The rest of the time, watching this movie really feels like doing time!

Although this isn't a great film, there was something about the film that interested me. The film portrays prison as just a place where they cage people, without using the opportunity to change their prisoners so they can be of use to society.

The story of an annual party help at a maximum-security prison in Quebec is just the stage for seeing the unhappy lives of several prisoners who are being interviewed by a journalist. The prisoners seem to have not changed a bit from the day they were incarcerated. The movies shows that prisons don't try to rehabilitate the men incarcerated there and just keep them jailed to keep them from society and to make the victims happy. Jail should be used as a way to help criminals turn their lives around. The idea of locking people in jail for 5 or more years is just a waste of tax money and proves that governments can't seem to find a way to help criminals rehabilitate. I'm not saying those who are mass murderers deserve this; there are some special cases, but some criminals won't benefit from 10-15 in the pen. The movie does a good job arguing for prison reform.

The film (in French-Canadian with English subtitles) is pretty rough in content. There's a lot of French-Canadian profanity, drug use, and some graphic violence. The saddest part is seeing the rowdy behavior of the 300 prisoners there, none of them seem likeable, and none of them look like they're anywhere close of being ready for society. I think a party featuring strippers, shock comedians, cross dressing singers, prostitutes, and the singer wife a fellow prisoner who isn't at the party because he is in the hole for being wrongly accused of bribery while allowing them to get stinking drunk is not a good idea. I think they should have brought in B.B. King to perform, he would have been a solution to the problem, because he never would play in the prison for money; just for the opportunity to touch souls who need it. Of course, that isn't the French-Canadian way, I guess.

My reaction to this film has me somewhat puzzled. I mean, I sat through the whole movie, and I was rarely entertained, but I wasn't bored, either. There were a few too many performances (singing/stripping/bad comedy) throughout the movie, but those were the only scenes where I was uninterested by the film. A few of the stories caught my attention, but none of them were given enough time to become truly interesting. So basically, watching this movie made for a painless (and joyless) way to kill some time.