Lock Up

Leave it to Sylvester Stallone to turn the restoration of a 1965 Mustang into a workout montage. By the time he made “Lock Up” in 1989, he’d already done four Rockys and three Rambos, and yet his idea of branching out was to play a short-timer convict who gets beat up a lot. Donald Sutherland plays a sadistic warden (is there any other kind in Hollywood?) trying to keep Sly inside. John Amos, Frank McRae and Tom Sizemore provide strong support, but the story is an unimaginative mashup of Stallone’s previous work with some of “The Longest Yard” thrown in.

Bad Girls

Whores on horses. Westerns changed a lot after John Wayne died. “Bad Girls” is a 1994 revenge/caper/western with brief glimpses of Drew Barrymore’s boobies. Madeleine Stowe plays a butt-kicking madam with a dark past who shares undertones of homoerotic chemistry with Mary Stuart Masterson (Where is the Skinemax remake when you need it?). Andie MacDowell plays herself. James Russo channels Tom Sizemore playing a psychopathic bandito (which would be a great name for a rock band). Robert Loggia gets whacked (Doesn’t he always?). There are big guns (besides Barrymore). And no, Dermot Mulroney is not the dude from “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Striking Distance

Ever seen a movie with so many halfway decent actors and so much half-ass dialogue and continuity errors that it just leaves you paralized? That’s right, paralized. Just like the “paralized” headline I saw in the Pittsburgh newspaper during “Striking Distance” (spellcheck hates me right now). This 1993 detective flick has a lineup that runs from Bruce Willis and Sarah Jessica Parker to Andre Braugher and Timothy Busfield. But infamous writer/director Rowdy Herrington also has people with two crutches and then no crutches and then one crutch, buttoned-then-unbuttoned shirts and a hilariously preposterous car chase. Except this isn’t a comedy.