A 2003 movie directed by Ringo Lam starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, and quite possibly one of his darker works.
Kyle Le Blanc (Van Damme) is an American working and living with his wife in Russia. After his wife is raped and killed at home, the criminal gets off due to lack of evidence; a vengeful Kyle shoots the man outside the courthouse in turn. As a result, he gets sentenced to a sinister and violent prison where the prisoners are forced into death-matches for the warden's amusement.
Unlike most of Van Damme's previous movies, his signature martial arts don't play a role, but the fights are portrayed in a more realistic manner. Fan response has received his performance in this film very well.
Tropes present in this film:
- Amoral Attorney: It's indicated that the attorneys representing Kyle's wife's killer got the case dismissed by bribing the judge.
- Armor-Piercing Question: At one point Prisoner 451 puts one of these to Kyle when the latter starts getting too much like the other prisoners he fights in the warden's matches.Prisoner 451: Do you even know who you are?
- Asshole Victim: The man who raped and murdered Kyle’s wife is gunned down by Kyle when it looks like he’ll be a Karma Houdini.
- Badass Bookworm: Prisoner 451, who has a reputation for killing cellmates, reads books that he collects and stores on his side of the cell he shares with Kyle.
- Big Bad: General Hruschov, the prison's warden who organizes the prison fights.
- Bittersweet Ending: Billy's dead, and Prisoner 451 will spend the rest of his life in prison. On the bright side, Kyle has escaped with 451's help, the prison is shut down three months later after Kyle presents evidence of the prison's corruption to the US government, and there is hope Kyle will recover from his traumatic experience.
- Butt-Monkey: Kyle himself is strong and determinated, but nevertheless he suffers many injures and gets through a lot of pain.
- Chekhov's Gun: Every time he's placed in solitary confinement, Kyle hears a prisoner on the other side of the wall moaning loudly, and he pounds on the wall as a way to quiet the other prisoner down. Turns out the other prisoner is Miloc, the prison's most brutal fighter, who stops his violent rampage in the climax when Kyle inadvertently pounds a door, because he took the echoes from those wall-poundings as a source of comfort.
- Crusading Widow: Kyle personally executed the man who raped and murdered his wife, and spends the rest of the movie kicking ass.
- Depraved Homosexual:
- Andrei, the leader of the prison Mafia, to whom the chief guard sells Billy every night.
- Valya, Andrei's successor, is also this.
- Determinator: Kyle.
- Disconnected by Death: What happened to Kyle and his wife: You're on the phone with a loved one, when suddenly they get attacked on their end of the line by a house-breaker, and on your end, you can only listen helplessly while unable to do anything about it.
- Driven to Suicide: At one point Kyle comes close to the brink of this...but the sight of a moth in the cell, the only other sign of life in the darkness of his current surroundings, reminds him of his wife's fervor for life and influences him to keep on going.
- For the Evulz: One gets the feeling this is why the villains in this film do what they do.
- Groin Attack: Twice in a fight between Kyle and Andrei: firstly when Andrei drags seemingly defeated Kyle by his leg to a pole, ramming it between his legs. He gets his comeuppance however, when Andrei reaches for Kyle's second leg, Kyle kicks him back in the groin in retaliation, forcing him to the ground, resulting in a very brutal cannibalistic karmic death.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Both Billy and Prisoner 451 warn Kyle against succumbing to this.Billy: Don't let them make you become something you're not.
- Hellhole Prison: The movie's title should be the first clue...
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Kyle is this with both Billy and Prisoner 451.
- The Juggernaut: Miloc, whose fights tend to be one-sided in his favor.
- Karmic Death: Kyle kills Andrei during one of the warden's betting-fights. Prisoner 451 later kills the warden.
- Kill It with Fire: The reason Prisoner 451 is in prison in the first place is because he did this to a teacher who was sexually abusing him. He also does this to another inmate who betrayed one of Billy's escape attempts to the guards.
- Man Bites Man: Kyle, after knocking Andrei to the ground in one of his fights, then proceeds to brutally bite into his neck, while he screams in agony, before he dies.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The vicious masked prisoner Miloc beats his opponents to death, and is thus far the only prisoner to be undefeated in the corrupt warden's betting-brawls.
- Oh, Crap!: Billy's reaction right before his first Prison Rape experience. And the warden's reaction before Prisoner 451 kills him.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Prisoner 451.
- Prison Rape: Newly-arrived inmate Billy gets selected for this right off the bat, and it's implied that he's subjected to this every night afterward. Kyle also gets threatened with this by Andrei, though fortunately he doesn't get to experience it.
- Rape as Backstory: The fate Kyle's wife suffered, in addition to being murdered afterwards. Also, Prisoner 451 was sexually abused by a male high school teacher, who he later set on fire in retaliation.
- Sanity Slippage: The conditions of the prison, the mistreatment from the prison's personnel, and the brutality of the fights he's forced to take part in slowly erode at Kyle's sanity over time. It leads to him becoming as savage as his opponents, which in turn leads to Prisoner 451 asking the above Armor-Piercing Question.
- Scary Black Man: Prisoner 451, and not without reason—every cell-mate he's had before Kyle has gotten their tongues ripped out.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: It's indicated early in the film that if Kyle were to simply pay off the prison guards, he wouldn't even have to spend a day in prison; given that his wife's killer got off his murder charge due to the judge being bribed, Kyle could just as easily have done it. However, Kyle himself averts it by refusing to do so.
- Shout-Out: Gee, a man obsessed with books and Numbered 451?
- Smug Snake: The warden, the chief guard, and Andre the prison Mafia leader.
- Too Dumb to Live: Billy is locked in a cell with the vicious prisoner Valya. Billy spits in Valya's face; Valya's response is to give Billy a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that results in Billy dying from his injuries.
- Vigilante Execution: The reason Kyle got thrown in prison.
- Wardens Are Evil: This prison's warden definitely is.
