MovieChat Forums > On the Yard (1979) Discussion > Not as good as I hoped

Not as good as I hoped

posted 17 years ago by Oliver-50
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So-so prison drama that lacks focus. John Heard is excellent and the cast is uniformly good, but dramatically it falls flat, especially in the last 20 minutes. We've seen everything in this movie done before and better. The filmmakers only scratch the surface of most of the characters and ideas.

"That is the whitest white part of the eye I have ever seen; do you floss?"

[–] mobocracy (898) 6 years ago

All true, but it’s got a great cinema verite feel to it even if the narrative lacks focus.

I like that most everything from the guards to the inmate violence is kind of realistically scaled. It’s not the crazy over the top prison stuff you always see now.