Steve Buscemi subtly refines the prison drama in his second film, a rich character piece set in a ramshackle state penitentiary. Edward Furlong is a glum, drug-dealing, middle-class bad boy suddenly drop-kicked into a world in which his sneering defiance just makes him more attractive prey to hardened convicts. Willem Dafoe, a career felon who runs the prison's contraband network, takes the kid under his wing and his protection. He's obviously attracted to the pretty boy and that sexual tension buzzes throughout the film, but their friendship, which is much more complicated, becomes the center of the film.
Buscemi allows the story to trickle along, downplaying the usual prison clichés to delve into the often murky relationships between prisoners, the predatory pecking order, and the undercurrent of racial divisions. He suggests everything in glances, threats, and tensions that only rarely erupt into violence. The film lacks a strong narrative line, but Buscemi's sensitivity to his characters and his sharp ensemble direction provide generous compensation. Dafoe is brilliant as the smiling smooth operator, his shaved head and jagged-toothed grin suggesting both a threatening confidence, and Furlong ably registers the fear of his sheer defenselessness in this dangerous world. Tom Arnold shines as a terrifying bully and Mickey Rourke is almost unrecognizable as Furlong's cross-dressing cellmate with a honeyed Southern lilt and makeup that would make Tammy Faye Bakker proud. --Sean Axmaker
(15 votes)
2.
For his second film as a director, actor Steve Buscemi (TREES LOUNGE) brings ex-convict Edward Bunker's poignant jail drama to the screen. Trapped with a long-term prison sentence in a Pennsylvania state penitentiary, 21-year-old Ron Decker (Edward Furlong) feels like a terrified fish-out-of-water. His cellmate, Jan the Actress (an impressively unrecognizable Mickey Rourke), is a cross-dresser who won't stop talking. Enter Earl Copen (Willem Dafoe), an aging convict who has been in prison so long that he runs the show. Earl takes Ron under his wing, and a strange and intense relationship develops between them. However, the relationship offers Ron the protection he needs and gives Earl the feeling that he is a father figure. After Ron's appeal is denied, ensuring his place in the penitentiary for five more years, Earl thinks up a dangerous plan of escape that will either set them free or cost them their lives in the process. Buscemi's drama successfully balances the brutality of prison life with the touching, intimate relationship between Ron and Earl, providing ANIMAL FACTORY with a sensitivity that most prison films rarely contain. The movie features an atmospheric score by actor-musician John Lurie.
(15 votes)
3.
When first-time felon Ron Decker (Edward Furlong - American History X, T2) is sentenced to two years in a decaying prison, he is quickly introduced to a world where violence is the only way of life. After witnessing a riot, Ron is soon taken under the wing of Earl Copen (Willem Dafoe - Platoon, The English Patient), a veteran convict who has manipulated the system to his every advantage, earning the respect of the toughest cops and the favor of the crooked guards. But sometimes - even respect in a community of convicts can hold you prisoner.
Now, Ron will soon discover that life in the Animal Factory is not about rehabilitation, it's about survival.
(15 votes)
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