Review of Let's Go to Prison (2006) by Joel G — 24 Jun 2008

Let's Go To Prison is yet another attempt at using gross-out humor to produce laughs. It's not that gross-out humor can't be funny -- just look at films like American Pie and There's Something About Mary -- but the difference between those movies and this one is that they had endearing characters, an interesting story arc, and clever writing. They had something to wrap the dirty jokes around and it worked. This film doesn't work in any way at any point during its run time. It's absolutely putrid.

John Lyshitski (Dax Shepard) has been to jail three times, or as he explains, "If I had a nickel for every time I've been incarcerated, I'd have 15 cents." Every time he gets sent off to jail, it's by the same judge. He claims that the judge has made him the person he is today (from what I could tell, a scumbag) by sending him to jail. After he gets out for the third time, he plans to make the judge's life a living hell. But as he soon finds out, he died only three days before. Too bad. Well, John learns of his son, Nelson Biederman IV (Will Arnett) and just decides to take it out on him. So through a completely inplausible and contrived situation, Nelson ends up in jail with John in the same cell. How convenient.

I couldn't stand this movie. From the opening monologue to the ridiculous conclusion, I was writhing in my seat. It was terrible in nearly every way. It was so bad, in fact, that I began to think of the harshest possible adjectives to describe it. Here's my best one: Let's Go To Prison is a shit soaked bloody cinematic abortion. Did you find that funny? If you did, this movie is for you. If you didn't, well, that's funnier than anything in this movie.

As soon as it started, the film was off on the wrong foot. John claims that it's the judges fault for sending him to prison. Well, technically yes, he did sentence him. But not before he stole two cars and shot at some people. But hey, it's not his fault he's such a burden on society. It's the prison system. Please.

But at least that beginning section didn't have a toilet joke. This is a movie that takes every possible opportunity it can to throw in a poop joke, gay joke, etc. It's so juvenile. And this is coming from a guy that makes poop and gay jokes constantly. I've come up with better jokes in my sleep. There is nothing original about them at all. It's like the writers said, "Well, it's set in prison. What jokes can we make? I know! Gay sex jokes! Because that's what they do right? Oh, how about if they made drinks in their toilet? That's gross! And gross means funny!" If there's any proof that gross-out humor is not funny without some context to it, this film is it. At one point in the movie, the prison warden makes a joke to the inmates without so much as a smile from them (or us). He then says, "Come on! That was funny!" It was as if he was directly addressing the viewer. Oh, sweet irony. But hey, I guess the writers should be given credit for not making fun of Lyshitski's name, given the obvious nature of it. So there you go. Congratulations guys. How grown up of you.

Now, I'm not going to say that the two leads are unfunny. Dax had some great moments on MTV's Punk'd and Arnett has had some fun as supporting characters in other movies. Hell, he was even in Writcutters: A Love Story which I loved. But neither of them can carry a whole film. Neither of them are talented enough to make anything more than mediocre. And this movie doesn't even come close to mediocrity.

If anything, there are 2 or 3 decent jokes interspersed here and there. But even then, they're not worth more than an audible "heh." There isn't one single laugh out loud moment in the movie. And since the story is so uninteresting and the characters unlikable, there is nothing to pull this film through to its conclusion. Let's Go To Prison is an astonishingly bad movie that won't hold your attention for more than 5 minutes and can only be recommended to people with the easiest exploited senses of humor.