Fortress
| Year: | 1993 |
| Production Co: | Davis Entertainment |
| Studio: | Dimension Films |
| Director: | Stuart Gordon |
| Cast: | Christopher Lambert, Kurtwood Smith |
An action film that promised a lot of thrills and spills, shot entirely in the Australian desert before The Matrix and the Star Wars prequels made the country so in vogue for Hollywood productions, it depicted a totalitarian society where breeding is forbidden.
As the hero (Lambert, back when he could still open a movie at cinemas) and his wife are caught trying to cross a border while she's pregnant, they're put into a vast, hi-tech, underground prison full of ultra-clean brutality and cyberpunk styling.
But as the tagline said, it's built to hold anything except an innocent man, and the hero has to band together with a small gang of rogues to exact the rescue of his wife and his escape. Better yet, it's all got to be carried out under the usual trappings of futuristic prison fortresses; constant electronic surveillance, implants in the gut that can paralyse an inmate with pain (coining the delightful word 'intestinate'), a cybernetic and psychotic warden (Smith), and an army of robotic guards.
It was also one of the first films where the standard video release contained scenes cut out of the theatrical version, but despite a nagging feeling of not exploiting the idea to its full potential, it was good fun.
As the hero (Lambert, back when he could still open a movie at cinemas) and his wife are caught trying to cross a border while she's pregnant, they're put into a vast, hi-tech, underground prison full of ultra-clean brutality and cyberpunk styling.
But as the tagline said, it's built to hold anything except an innocent man, and the hero has to band together with a small gang of rogues to exact the rescue of his wife and his escape. Better yet, it's all got to be carried out under the usual trappings of futuristic prison fortresses; constant electronic surveillance, implants in the gut that can paralyse an inmate with pain (coining the delightful word 'intestinate'), a cybernetic and psychotic warden (Smith), and an army of robotic guards.
It was also one of the first films where the standard video release contained scenes cut out of the theatrical version, but despite a nagging feeling of not exploiting the idea to its full potential, it was good fun.