I normally don’t have much use for Sylvester Stallone movies.  His earlier stuff generally strikes me as a poor substitute for Schwartzenegger’s films and his later stuff seems like a desperate attempt to convince us–or maybe even himself–that he’s not an aging wreck of an action hero and is still in fact an action hero. But Lock Up, which the folks out at Lions Gate sent me a copy of on Blu-ray to review, is a wholly different matter.

Stallone plays Frank Leone, a model prisoner who’s doing pretty well in jail following his conviction. He’s even got weekend furloughs with his lady. But Frank wasn’t always a model prisoner–he actually busted out of prison once to visit an old man who was dying. Due to the system’s workings, Leone got a transfer to minimum security, while the warden at Frank’s original prison, a man named Drumgoole, got a transfer of his own, to Gateway, the worst pit in the system.  And Drumgoole wants payback on Frank, in the very worst way. He’s in the position to get it, too. So Leone’s got six months left on his sentence, and it’s going to be six deeply unpleasant months.

And indeed, as I suggested, this is going to be Stallone’s great struggle against injustice, as pretty much every possible horror a prison system can visit–with certain exceptions–will take place. Sleep deprivation, beatings, starvation…most of the standard horrors.  And through it all, Frank will absorb the blows like punching a mattress.

It’s really downright inspirational, watching Frank go through all this. And considering that the bulk of Stallone’s work was so much low-rent action crap, seeing him do something–anything!–that can be called inspirational is something of a minor miracle.

Oh, sure, he’s done some good stuff before, like the Rocky series and suchlike, but Lock Up will feature a surprising superabundance of twists and exciting moments and traps and, of course, good old fashioned bare knuckle action. And yes, on a lot of levels, this is trite and cheesy, but it’s also a great deal of fun. It’s such a big surprise to see out of Stallone that it covers a whole multitude of errors.

The end result here is a surprisingly uplifting package of horrors and thrills that will combine to be both exciting and inspiring.  And being able to say that about some action film from the deep dark annals of early Stallone is at once baffling and thrilling. The Screenhead Ten Scale, in turn, gives it a seven out of ten–sure, it’s got its troubles, but it’s still pretty entertaining.