utgard14 Sylvester Stallone plays a mechanic serving time in a minimum-security prison. He's been a model prisoner, liked by everybody, and even allowed to leave the prison on furlough. One night he's awakened in his bed by armed guards and forcibly taken to a maximum security prison, headed by a sadistic warden (Donald Sutherland) with an ax to grind with Sly. He's told he will have to serve out the remainder of his sentence there and Sutherland makes it clear life will be hell for him.Sly's terrific. He's always been an underrated actor. Sutherland, as he often does, overacts and uses at least three different accents before settling on one. Since Sutherland is hardly a physical threat to Stallone, they added Sonny Landham as the tough-ass prisoner who torments our hero. Tom Sizemore is a snitch. John Amos plays a guard who seems bad but turns out to be okay. My favorite character was probably Frank McRae as a huge prisoner who comes to Sly's aid ("F train, son. F train.").What would an '80s Stallone movie be without a montage? There's a fun one here as Sly bonds with his fellow cons restoring an old car. Despite being a prison flick, it's not really like the exploitation prison movies of the '70s and early '80s. Implausible to the extreme but also entertaining.

Armand an action film. one who can be a surprise for many viewers. and a Stallone performance who can change many old verdicts about him. short - a place. an its rules. a fight with many arms.a splendid character by Donald Sutherland and an interesting mixture of emotion, action scenes, lesson about life purpose. far to be sentimental, with maybe one memorable scene, maybe not remarkable - it is not Rambo or a classic - but different by a lot of films from same genre. and that is its basic, fundamental virtue - the desire to create a simple story , heroic and touching, who gives chance to discover few not bad characters . a decent film. far to classic recipes of genre.

brent-leslie Like Shawshank, but less touching and more muscles and darker.It hits the right notes, but the warden seems a bit too sadistic. How could such a tyrant ever get to be in a position of authority in cahoots with a whole bunch of guards and prisoners without ever being found out? This makes the whole thing seem a bit far fetched, which it is, but hey, that's entertainment.Otherwise a good ride. The ending could have been better - he should have broken back into his cell instead and gone "Huh? What's all the fuss about?". That would have been more awesome than the over the top scene at the end which would have landed him with a few more years jail time in reality!Probably Sly's best. But that ain't saying much.

Mr-Fusion "Lock Up" never appeared on my radar until hearing David Morrell praise Stallone's performance on the "First Blood" commentary. And he does do a pretty kick-ass job.Stallone stars as a terminally upbeat con serving out the last of his sentence in a country club penitentiary. But his cakewalks is cut short when the vicious warden (Donald Sutherland) of a nearby hellhole has him "transferred" to serve out the remainder under his thumb. Sutherland's still nursing a years-old grudge, and has made it his life's ambition to break Stallone's indomitable spirit."Lock Up" is your standard prison movie, albeit charged by John Flynn's macho direction (sentimentalized by Conti's score). But the tropes are all here and accounted for. What gives this particular prison movie a new spin is the psychological thriller aspect between Stallone and Sutherland. And it remains a hard-edged drama right up until the last fifteen minutes when things turn full-on action movie. Still, as Stallone movies go, it's one of his better performances. 6/10