ANIMAL FACTORY
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Silver Nitrate Releasing Director: Steve Buscemi Writer: Edward Bunker and John Steppling, novel by Edward Bunker Cast: Willem Dafoe, Edward Furlong, Seymour Cassel, Mickey Rourke, Steve Buscemi, Tom Arnold, John Heard, Danny Trejo, Jake La Botz, Mark Boone, Edward Bunker, Christopher Bauer, Michale Buscemi
"Animal Factory" looks like a hard-boiled prison drama-- and that it is--but what makes it different from every other jailhouse story including Frank Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption" is that it explores the nature of mentoring. Mentors, of course, are people who take other under their wing, explaining the culture of organizations such as businesses to the neophytes, and going to bat for the new guys to advance the careers of their followers. Why are some of us willing to do this? The least altruistic reason is that the boss assigns someone to do this job, to show the ropes to a new worker. On the other hand, the Online Film Critics Society maintains an exciting mentoring program in which volunteer critics look over the reviews of new applicants and show them how to improve their writing so that they can be admitted to the fold. This ranks as the most unselfish kind of service.
Now then: why should a hardened criminal in his late forties show an interest in a handsome guy of about 25 from a rich family who is sentenced to a tough institution in an election year for possession of a large quantity of marijuana? To get points for an upcoming probation hearing? Possibly. But I know what you're thinking. The older fellow wants to turn the callow youth into a punk, meaning in prison vocabulary a guy who permits sexual favors in return for protection and a kindly shoulder. Is that what motivates Earl Copen (Willem Dafoe) to take special notice of a new kid, Ron Decker (Edward Furlong) while some more sinister- looking guys in the jail have their eye on Decker as well? That is perhaps what director Steve Buscemi wants us to think. That's the most logical assumption and you couldn't be blamed for holding the view.
"Animal Factory" is gritty, as you might expect since it comes across as hardly a country club reformatory for stockbrokers who trade illegally on specialized knowledge. Yet Buscemi has made a picture more believable than did Frank Darabont in '94 when he told the tale of a straight-arrow guy who is railroaded for a double murder and sent to prison for life in the late 1940s. Where Darabont's drama is an overlong 142 minutes, Buscemi's is a just-right 94, and where "Shawshank" is predictable, "Animal Factory" surprises.
The prison which is the scene of frequent stabbings, work stoppages, rapes, and countless rounds of convict politicking and scheming is called Eastern State and is actually filmed by Phil Parment outside Philadelphia at Holmsburg State prison and at a nearby house of detention. In the story, we find that Decker has spent two weeks in the correctional facility with hopes for an early parole thanks to his rich dad's (John Heard) manuevers, but when he could use a couple of favors such as a ticket to the prison show, he is introduced to Earl Copen (Willem Dafoe), who is looked up to as the de facto leader of the convicts. Because Copen has no ulterior motive in taking the kid on--he simply had developed a liking for the lad--he gradually, without pressure, explains the ropes, among which is the advice that the word "inmate" is out. The prison population like to call themselves "convicts." Why? Who knows. That's just the culture. When Decker is ultimately threatened by the large and menacing Buck Rowan (Tom Arnold), who approaches the frail young man in the bathroom demanding that Decker be his punk, Copen is called on to take the needed action.
The serious consequences that follow, including a stringent penalty thrown on poor Decker by an unsympathetic judge, turns the 25-year-old onto the road leading to hardened criminality--making yet another mockery of the idea that our penitentiaries are correctional facilities.
Buscemi's movie is in no way a highly commercial, frequently hysterical and calculated melodrama such as "The Shawshank Redemption" or "Midnight Express," and that is to its credit. Rejecting the standard Hollywood path, Buscemi gives the impression at times that he's making a docu-drama, portraying the real story of prison life but without the deadly talking-heads routine of conventional documentaries. We get the impression that whatever we see actually goes on behind stone walls--the transvestite Jan the Actress (Mickey Rourke) who, surprisingly, is not bothered by the goons; the separation of blacks and whites, occasionally yielding to outright race riots; the sporadic stabbings in the prison yard that lead to lockups and to the dumping of suspects into solitary; the sharing of HIV-infected needles by the dopers in the jail who are able to get heroin smuggled in with the cooperation of friendly or indifferent guards.
Despite the violence, this is not the sort of movie that would have even the most sensitive person in the audience turning away from the screen with one possible exception, one portrayed in stomach-churning fury by Copen in his attempt to avoid transfer to a different institution. The chemistry between Dafoe and Furlong is this indie's most valuable offering, an even more important and touching one than the portrayals of the boredom and brutality that regularly touch the lives of these unfortunate people. Buscemi gets good ensemble work from these veteran actors, who work at the low end of the pay scale to put out this minimal-budget movie in just 29 days.
Not Rated. Running time: 94 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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