Hello Youtube!
I am Torstein from Cinema Terror and today we are going into a late entry to the women
in prison subgenre with the 1999 made for television film Time Served.
Ok, Time Served has a ridiculous and bizarre plot.
It starts out with us seeing the crime that puts Catherine Oxenberg's character Sarah
McKinney in jail.
She was in a toxic relationship with a drunk abuser, who one day goes too far and slaps
her eight year old child.
She respons by trying to move them out of their house, but is stopped until her little
kid grabs a gun and shots his stepfather dead.
Sarah takes the blame for the murder and is sentenced to eight years in jail by a
corrupt judge.
In prison, she is given the choice of being constantly abused by the guards and inmates
or play along by dancing at a local stripclub that somehow has a work release program arrangement
with the prison.
So, while Sarah tries to avoid being forced to dance naked in front of strangers, her
down on his luck lawyer Patrick, played by Jeff Fahey out of all people, is trying his
best to get her out of jail before she is hurt or even killed.
Time Served is not a good film.
Let's just start with that.
It's a film that I doubt anyone involved cared about this at all and probably all just did
it for the paycheck.
But also to be fair, that's not unique when it comes to this subgenre and there is still
be room for the talents that took their job serious to shine and display their talents
on these flicks.
I have no idea what the three writers was thinking about or why there were three screenwriters
for this in the first place, but was the idea of having a corrupt prison working with a
stripclub the best idea they could come up with?
It's different, for sure, but not believable and it gives you a feeling that they had two
different stories they wanted to go with, one being a women in prison film and one being
a movie about this stripclub.
It doesn't gel together, mostly because I just couldn't buy into the premise.
It's not like its only the warden and the main guard that has cocked this plan together,
everyone who works at this jail seems to be all for it.
Not one single decent soul at this entire prison facility thought it would be a good
idea to do anything about this I guess.
The good thing the film has to offer is its cast.
Jeff Fahey plays Sarah's lawyer and I've always felt he deserves to do bigger films.
He is a great actor who is high and beyond the rest of Time Served.
I also want to mention Bo Hopkins, who plays the sleazy stripclub owner called Mr. D. He
is also wonderful and you kind of wish that he was the main bad guy in the film as he
gets way too little screentime.
He could have done the exact same performance in a 70's redneck exploitation film and it
would have worked just as fine back then as it did in this one.
Back to a more negative criticism is that the movie doesn't seem to know what it wants
to do.
You would think this would be a violent films with lots and lots of nudity, and there are
some of that to be found, the story feels like it belongs more to a regular Lifetime
drama.
The film also lacks a distinctive tone.
It's not campy enough to be funny, it's not violent enough to work in the exploitation
genre, but it has elements of both, which makes it unable to succeed as an emotional
drama either.
The guy who sat in the directors chair for this, Glen Pitre has been praised by Rogert
Ebert before, calling Pitre "a legendary American regional director".
This was after Time Served had been released, but somehow I doubt this film came to Eberts
mind when he was giving out his compliments.
Pitre has mostly made his mark with documentaries like Hurricane in the Bayou and American Creole:
New Orleans Reunion.
How he ended up with Time Served is anyone's guess.
I'd really like to watch a behind the scenes or making of video about this film.
Time Served is not a film I can recommend.
It's too tame for the exploitation crowd and I don't think there is any other audience
for something like this either.
You might get some enjoyment out of watching Jeff Fahey and Bo Hopkins as I did, but that's
not enough to save the film.
Time Served is not worth seeking out and it is has been forgotten for a reason.
Time Served only gets a 1.5 out of 5.
Has anyone else out in the world seen this one?
If so, why and what did you think of the film?
If you like films like this, then I'd recommend that you check out my review for the 1985
Red Heat, starring Linda Blair.
That one has a bit more to offer than Time Served.
I hope you enjoyed this review, there are many more to be found on my channel and many
more to come, so make sure you subscribe and all of that stuff.
Thank you for watching Cinema Terror and I'll see you soon again.
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