This film begins with a young, black man named "Martel Gordone" (Leon Isaac Kennedy) sleeping on the side of a desert highway when two bikers appear and give him a hard time before eventually riding off. Not long afterward, Martel decides to walk back to the highway and tries to hitchhike in order to continue on his journey. Not long afterward, an attractive woman by the name of "Linda" (Hazel Spears) comes along in a van and picks him up. It is then revealed that Linda is a prostitute who uses a CB radio to find her next customer and her van is where she conducts business. That being said, not long after Linda picks him up, she gets a call that two clients are waiting for her at a nearby diner. Unfortunately, once they both go into the diner, a fight erupts between Martel and the two bikers who had harassed him earlier. Yet, even though Martel was only defending himself, he is unfairly blamed for the death of one of the bikers and subsequently sent to an extremely tough prison where fighting is a routine occurrence. It is also where Martel learns how to box and with this knowledge comes an opportunity for him to gain his freedom. But in order to do that he has to manage to first find a way to survive. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was one of those films I had wanted to see when it first came out but never got around to it until recently. That being said, even though I liked this film for the most part, I have to say that some of the boxing scenes could have been much better if the director (James Fanaka) had focused on them a bit more thoroughly instead of constantly cutting away to another scene developing at the same time. Likewise, I didn't think some of the prison antics were that necessary either. Be that as it may, given the fact that this was a low-budget film, I won't be too critical and have rated it accordingly. Average.
Review of Penitentiary
