Synopsis
He's Too Fast, Two Fisted ...
An ex-con, on parole and trying to straighten his life out, decides to resume his boxing career when one of his prison enemies escapes and kills his girlfriend.
Penitentiary II
1982 Directed by Jamaa Fanaka
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Alternative Titles
Black City Tiger, Blutige Lorbeeren
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First time watch for me. Can't imagine what it was like to watch this on the Deuce back in the day.
Lots of great scenes including Mr. T, Ernie Hudson and even a Dolemite appearance but the highlight for me is Tony Cox as Midget, the little person who is desperately trying to solicit sex from a female prisoner.
Vinegar Syndrome recently restored the film and released a nice Blu-ray.
Great interview with Jamaa Fanaka on the disc.Watched the Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray.
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This is the Evil Dead 2 to Penitentiary’s original. Fanaka kicks off with a bonkers piss take on the classic Star Wars title scroll that must be ten paragraphs long, before diving right into the total insanity as Too Sweet continues his rise to boxing fame.
Fanaka, benefiting from the success of the first film, throws in everything and the kitchen sink - Rudy Ray Moore cameos, roller dancing, Mr. T in a pre-A Team role dressed as Aladdin and carrying a lamp, the great Glyn Turman. For no reason (other than continuity), fights still take place at the penitentiary, only now they are televised and have professional announcers.
It’s all completely silly nonsense, and the casting work isn’t as…
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A lot of classic street scenes await Too Sweet once he's paroled from prison for murder he swears he didn't commit. Roller skating disco on the boardwalk at Santa Monica was big back in the day and Penitentiary II lets its energy unfold in front of your eyes for at least ten minutes. On the darker side an escaped convict named Half Dead, or just plain Dead, cruises the streets with his two associates, Do Dirty and Simp, as they try to locate Too Sweet and kill him. The funnier than shit jive dialog in the car between Dead, Simp, and Do Dirty kind of works as a counterbalance to Too Sweet's serious tone about what direction he wants his…
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The great exploitation movies have a kitchen-sink commitment to entertaining audiences at all costs, which is definitely a description that applies to Penitentiary II. Striking the perfect balance between the (relatively) realistic drama and action of the first movie and the batshit insanity of the third, this movie has pretty much everything a blaxploitation lover could want, right down to a cameo from Dolemite himself, Rudy Ray Moore.
Fanaka's cross-cutting between the climactic boxing match, Mr. T dressed as a genie beating the shit out of Ernie Hudson in a clown wig, Too Sweet's family being held hostage by a couple knife-wielding thugs, and a little person trying desperately to purchase sex from a boxing spectator, isn't so much skillful…
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"We're only interested in capturing the pocketbooks of America."
"I believe in miracles. I believe in America! I believe in Too Sweet! I believe in motherhood! I believe in apple pie! I believe! I believe!"
I can't help but see this as being almost a post-mortem on the blaxploitation cycle -- a commentary on how a genre of films that started as an outlet for representation and empowerment wound up being commercialized and exploited by both the white and black man. It's to Fanaka's credit that something that could've easily been angry and overtly didactic is a blast to watch, with roller disco, Rudy Ray Moore cameo and the nastiest use of potato salad I've ever seen. In the end, Too Sweet's gritty, human story wins out over the cartoonishness of corporatized black exploitation. I mean, what the hell else is Ernie Hudson in a clown wig supposed to represent?
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Nothing like a shitty sequel to sully all the good will of the original. If this was a half-finished film sold to Cannon, who shot a sleazy sub-plot and spliced in poorly, it might explain the result. That this is written and directed by the same guy as the first makes it all the more disappointing. One can have fun with this dumb movie, just don’t call it good!
Too Sweet is out on parole and employed by the owner of a boxing gym. He wants nothing to do with pugilism anymore, so he works as a roller-skating deliveryman (!). He does get back into boxing after a fashion, but things get muddled fast. There’s a new trainer in Mr.…
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Loses the grit of the original but in doing so kind of becomes a parody of itself? It's like what happened with Rocky but sped up and more committed to making anything but a traditional boxing movie. Ernie Hudson takes over for Badja Djola and knows exactly the kinda movie he's in. Rudy Ray Moore showes up. Mr. T plays himself. Tony Cox stars in his own movie about trying to grease his balls. Dedicated to Jamaa Fanaka's parents.
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This has an "only 80s kids will remember" dream cast - Mr. T, Winston from Ghostbusters, the teacher from Gremblins, but also some cameos from a young Tony "Bad Santa" Cox, Rudy Ray Moore (credited as Rudolph Ray Moore!) and a bunch of folks from Penitentiary one. It doesn't disappoint. I loved this one as a kid and it still PACKS A PUNCH!
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There's no reason why Fanaka shouldn't have made exactly this film, to try to create something more broadly appealing than the first movie, and it can't be a coincidence that this came out a month before ROCKY III. But the obvious irony of a movie called PENITENTIARY that takes place largely on the outside would seem to be the perfect opportunity for Fanaka to continue his angry trajectory and tell a story about how a black man returns to the society that threw him away, how maybe he's not behind actual bars now but is still in the white man's prison, you get it. Nope. While there's definitely still a thread about black men beating each other for the amusement…
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1982 In Review - April
#9An ex-con, on parole and trying to straighten his life out, decides to resume his boxing career when one of his prison enemies escapes and kills his girlfriend.
When I first started this and saw that it starred Mr. T as a boxer I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t end up being the origin story of Clubber Lang. He was clearly the best thing that was in the film despite his very little screen time. As for the film, I think it’s a slight improvement on the first, although it does drag on a little and the boxing scenes are nowhere near as good as the ones in the Rocky films.
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Rudy Ray Moore cameo for the gold.
Goofier, longer (ouch), but more fun than the first one. There's a mad magazine-style energy Fanaka is channelling that would land more strongly for me if it was a little tighter, not necessarily more focused, but he's the one calling the shots, and this is what he likes!
I'll be humming the theme all day.
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The STAR WARS style opening crawl that connects the first two PENITENTIARY pictures might be one of the greatest things I've ever seen in a movie.
Fanaka's sequel is hurt a little by distracting recasting (Ernie Hudson is crazy and all as the new Half Dead, but he's got all his teeth! Also -- I miss Wildcat!), and there are some weird narrative hiccups, but there's no denying these movies came from a singular, unique worldview. The love of cinema on display is infectious (that dude playing sax in the crowd during Too Sweet's first fight is amazing!), and Fanaka is just as good at being a sheer entertainer as he is at delivering documents of social unrest. Plus, Mr. T becomes one of Too Sweet's corner men, so that warrants a watch by itself.
