Pulpmovies Reviews

Fortress is an SF prison flick, set in an authoritarian and overcrowded USA of the future where the law allows for only one baby per woman.

After losing their first child, ex war hero John Brannick (Christopher Lambert) and his pregnant wife, Karen (Loryn Locklin) are caught trying to cross the border into Mexico where they hope to keep their unborn child. In the ensuing chase, Brannick sacrifices himself to give his wife time to escape and ends up in the Fortress - a privately run underground prison complex in which the prisoners are put to work expanding the complex so that the managing corporation, Men-Tel is able to cope with the rapidly expanding prison population. Much of the background to the film is given as the inmates arrive - annoyingly info-dumped in the form of a computer voiceover/marketing spiel that explains to the inmates everything the audience needs to know. It may just be a personal gripe, but I find this type of blatant spoon-feeding both irritating and patronising. Surely it isn’t too much for the average audience to figure out what is going on without having to have everything spelled out in large letters.

The DVD has a theatrical trailer on it which pitches Fortress as an action movie and there is plenty of mayhem - especially in the final act - along with a few bits of gore that are genuinely unpleasant to watch. However this film is much more than a guns ‘n’ gore no-brainer. This is a relatively thoughtful movie that attempts to comment on a number of social issues including repression, increasing population surveillance and control and the expanding role and influence of corporations in society. As with other SF prison films - and prison films in general for that matter - Fortress also deals with Brennick’s struggle to retain his dignity in the deliberately dehumanising environment of the prison complex.

On arrival at the Fortress, the new inmates are made to hand over all personal effects and are fitted with an ‘intestinator’ - a nasty little gadget which inflicts pain or death - either automatically whenever the inmate breaks one of the prison rules or manually whenever Prison Director Poe (Kurtwood Smith) decides to use it. The artificially enhanced Poe who, with the aid of his all-seeing and nagging computer, monitors and controls every aspect of the prisoners’ lives - right down to their dreams - makes a very well realised villain and is probably the most rounded character in the film. All-powerful within the complex, but never actually leaving it - he comes across as being as much the property of Men-Tel as the inmates from whose dreams he derives his voyeuristic pleasures.

Apart from Kurtwood Smith, the acting in Fortress is variable, to say the least, and the film manages to include every character stereotype ever to have made it into a prison film - most of them in the same overcrowded cell. Putting all these stereotypes together, of course, brings a lot of predictability to the film and it’s this, more than anything else, that lets it down. As soon as you see the claustrophobic guy you know he’s going to be on the receiving end of the faceless brutality of the Fortress. You just know that the kid is going to get rescued by Brannick before we get very far into the film. And the combination of characters in Brannick’s cell screams The A Team right from the word go.

All in all, Fortress is an above average science fiction film which competently deals with several related ideas. Although the film suffers from far too many stereotypes and some very confused plotting, the premise was interesting enough to hold my attention to the end of the film. As an action film that manages to make you think, Fortress is well worth seeing.

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