Lockdown is a great movie. Sad but real. Lockdown is a story about an aspiring swimmer named Avery (Richard T Jones). One of his main goals in life is to become a swimmer One night while he and his two friends Dre and Cashmere ( Gabriel Casseus, Deaundre Bonds) are driving in Cashmere's car they find a gun. The gun is linked to a fast food robbery earlier that night. The Police tracks them down and finds the gun on them. They all get sentenced for armed robbery and murder.

Gabriel Casseus's performance of the hyper and thuggish Cashmere was brilliant. Bonds role of Dre was not bad, but it didn't live up like the roles of Richard T Jones and Gabriel Casseus. Master P is also great as Clean Up, the vicious inmate who has security guards working for him, his drugs being brought in and out of the prison a ho of a girlfriend who Cashmere gets a piece of, and he wants Cashmere to do his dirty work.

The supporting cast was brilliant. Melissa De Sousa as Avery's girl Krista; Sticky Fingaz as Broadway the ex drug dealer turned inmate; Bill Nunn as Avery's scouter for college and his attorney; And Clifton Powell who was the OG of the prison, and I felt he should've had a longer part in the movie.

Lockdown is Master P's best movie to date.

I can't say it enough: I never want to go to prison, and I didn't need this movie to make that clear to me.

"Lockdown" is essentially about three friends who were falsely convicted of a crime and sent to prison for it. Once inside the three went three different directions geographically and experientially. The main character, Avery (Richard T. Jones known from "The Wood"),celled up with an older, level-headed, more experienced inmate, Malachi (Clifton Powell). Cashmere (Gabriel Casseus known from "New Jersey Drive"),a drug dealer by trade, hooked up with the prison gangster. Dre (De'Aundre Bonds also known from "The Wood"),a non-criminal friend, was celled up with an Aryan gangbanger. Their divergent paths separated them more than just physically and their prison experiences were likewise wildly different.

Avery was a competitive swimmer looking to land a scholarship at a major university before he landed in prison. It seemed odd to cast a guy who looked thirty-five to play a guy who was supposed to be between nineteen and twenty-two-years-old. He was a victim by association. Even though the guys he was with when he got arrested weren't guilty of the crime they were convicted of, Cashmere's lifestyle is what put them in the precarious position they found themselves in.

The prison scenes, as repulsive as they were, were very real (according to all of my viewing of Nat Geo's "Lockdown" and "Lockdown Raw"),with the exception of Dre being celled up with an Aryan. Prisons and churches are the most segregated institutions in America. As a rule, prisons try to put like with like to avoid unnecessary skirmishes, so it was extremely odd to see the New Mexico prison put a Black man in the same cell as an Aryan.

I could appreciate the prison depiction, though I didn't quite like the legal maneuvering outside the prison. Out in the world Avery had a small team trying to help free him: his girlfriend Krista (Melissa De Sousa),a college scout Charles (Bill Nunn),and a lawyer. Their best shot to get Avery freed was to get the real killer, Broadway (Sticky Fingaz),to admit to the crime. When Krista went to visit Broadway in prison (locked up for an unrelated crime) to plead with him to 'fess up, she got the exact response I would expect in real life. "Kick rocks." He just said it in a more vociferous and profane manner.

The movie, not wanting to exert much effort in the legal department, then went for an easy cop out and had Broadway admit guilt in a suicide note. It was too convenient and not true to character. I much would've preferred that they do the hard work it normally takes to free an innocent man convicted of a crime. It is really hard work and takes years.

"Lockdown" was good within the confines of the prison and sloppy outside. Adding the two opposing integers together it's still a decent movie.

"Lockdown" is a pathetic attempt at film making with a litany of deficits too long for this forum. The film fails in everything from over-acting to silly stereotypically characters to awful directing to....etc. Not recommendable for anyone for any reason. (D)