Let’s Go to Prison (2006)

Starring: Dax Shepard, Will Arnett, Chi McBride, David Koechner, Bob Odenkirk, Michael Shannon, and Dylan Baker, with cameos from Tim & Eric (Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim)
Grade: B

I don’t know why, but I end up watching Let’s Go to Prison once a year. It just happens. I can’t explain it.

Summary

John Lyshitski (Shepard) has just gotten out of prison. Over the years, he’s been considered a repeat offender because of his three stints in correctional facilities, with the first one starting when he was 8 years old. Judge Nelson Biederman III (David Darlow) sentenced the child to seven years in juvenile detention to fix him, but this just managed to turn a troubled kid into a troubled adult. It doesn’t help that anytime Lyshitski got back into that court room, Biederman was there to do the sentencing, and he never let up on him.

After buying a gun and planning on slowly messing with Biederman for revenge, Lyshitski finds out Biederman died three days before his most recent release, ruining his plans. Now, he doesn’t know what to do. While at a strip club, he sees a newspaper article talking about Biederman’s son, Nelson Biederman IV (Arnett). Though Biederman’s father is the man he wanted to get back at, getting his revenge on his son will be just as sweet for Lyshitski. He attends some ceremony for Biederman’s father that Biederman IV is speaking at. To no one’s surprise, Biederman IV is an asshole just like his father, which just makes things easier for Lyshitski. As Biederman IV does his speech to a crowd of onlookers, Lyshitski breaks into Biderman IV’s car and starts messing with his stuff. This includes things like spitting in his coffee and emptying his inhaler. After the speech is over and Biederman IV is done yelling at one of the members of the Biederman Foundation in Duane (Odenkirk) over the phone, he tries to use his inhaler. Since it is completely empty because of Lyshitski, Biederman IV drives straight to a pharmacy and frantically searches for an inhaler, with Lyshitski watching the whole thing from his car outside. The way Biederman IV goes about things in the pharmacy makes him look like a dangerous junkie, forcing the workers to treat him like an intruder. They even mistake his inhaler as a gun, with Lyshitski shooting his own gun on the outside to panic the workers into thinking Biederman fired his non-existent gun.

Biederman is arrested and he calls Duane, demanding Duane and the Foundation get him out of this. Duane suggests he plead guilty, plea bargain, and step down as Chairman of the Foundation. Biederman refuses this option and demands their legal team figure it out because he’s innocent, threatening Duane and everyone else in the Foundation. After the phone call ends, Duane and the members of the Foundation agree to screw over Biederman because they all can’t stand him, with Duane happily agreeing to represent Biederman himself.

They go to trial and the jury finds Biederman guilty of felony assault, especially after Duane purposely bombs the case. Biederman is sentenced for three-to-five-years and Lyshitski is loving it, attending the trial for his own amusement. Later that night, after hanging with some friends and smoking weed, Lyshitski starts to feel a bit unsatisfied. Two undercover cops show up at his door to buy some weed and though Lyshitski can tell they’re cops, he decides to sell to them because he wants to go back to prison. After selling the weed and telling his friends to leave, the cops bust into his place to arrest him. He admits he’s guilty to the judge, negotiates a three-to-five-year sentence and to be sent to the same prison Biederman is being sent to. He now has a new plan: bunk with Biederman and make his life in prison a living hell. He befriends Biederman on the bus to the prison and right away, he starts to gain his trust. After we are introduced to the no-nonsense warden (Baker) and his main guard (Koechner), the prisoners are given their cells. Because Lyshitski’s friends with the guy assigning everyone to their cells, and because he paid him a good amount of money, he is able to get the cell with Biederman.

Now, he’s going to continue to act like a friend to Biederman while trying everything possible to ruin his life. However, Biederman adjusts a lot better than one would think.

My Thoughts:

This is one of those under-the-radar comedies that is always on TV, and you finally decide to watch it because you had time on your hands. Then, you realize it was funnier than you initially thought. It’s not for everyone, but I still find it very amusing.

Now, most of the movie’s jokes revolve around prison stereotypes. You have the neo-Nazis, the prison rape jokes, etc. If that doesn’t bother you, it’s pretty entertaining. Because my sense of humor likes this bottom of the barrel humor at times, I still get a kick out of it. Sometimes, I groan at the unoriginality of stuff like this in other films, but it’s presented pretty well in Let’s Go to Prison. Honestly, it all works because of Dax Shepard and Will Arnett. These guys are very well casted in their roles. Dax plays a great criminal. He’s always had the look of a trashy, inner-city white dude that everyone’s friends with, so this role just fits him. He also really nails the personality of the petty criminal he’s playing. Despite his bad intentions, he’s still very likable. That’s Dax for you! I loved watching him flip out when things don’t go his way too. It happens a lot, and it’s always funny. Dax himself has always been funny as well, and it’s nice to see him in a starring role. He’s one of those unsung comedic actors that always gets a laugh when given the opportunity, but no one ever recognizes it because the movie never does that well. This movie is a great example of his underrated talents, along with Hit and Run, CHIPS, and Employee of the Month.

Will Arnett is another great comic actor, but he’s gotten more attention because of more high-profile supporting roles comparatively. He just has a voice for comedy, and he’s great at playing an asshole. The plot is very creative too. The guy whose life he wants to ruin died, so a lifetime criminal goes back to prison just to ruin the life of that guy’s son because well…it’s close enough! That’s some grimy, mean-spirited comedy shit that is right up my alley!

Everything with Chi McBride being this smooth-talking criminal just wanting a piece of Will Arnett’s ass is really funny, and the three co-stars have very good chemistry for a lower-level comedy like this. If I were to suggest anything, I do wish it was a little longer and had some sort of a subplot to enrich the story a little bit because the tone and the environment created was a lot of fun. It just needed more going on in general. Considering Bob Odenkirk’s hands were all over it as director and Thomas Lennon (of Reno 911! fame) was one of the writers, it had room to be a lot crazier than it was. Don’t get me wrong, it was already pretty crazy but if there was some sort of a subplot, there could’ve been room for even more jokes or outrageous situations for Lyshitski and Biederman to get through. I’m sure the warden could’ve had a bigger role and it could’ve led to something. I don’t know. It just gets me thinking about all of the possibilities because this was already funny enough to entertain me. Odenkirk did say significant changes were made to the movie in editing that pissed him off and ruined the potential of the film, so it makes me think Let’s Go to Prison was on the verge of something special if the studio didn’t mess with it. If you got a comedy movie in these capable of hands, maybe trust them next time?

The studio probably thought they needed to reach a wider audience to make some money, so they had to tone some things down, but they should’ve just been realistic about the situation. This is a prison movie starring Dax Shepard. There are only so many people that’ll turn their heads to watch a movie like this.

Thankfully, I’m one of them.

Also, Hollywood’s resident loose cannon in lunatic Michael Shannon really embodies what I would imagine a neo-Nazi to be. Some people just have the crazy eyes and look they’ve murdered in real life and Shannon is that guy. The best line out of this whole movie was Lyshitski describing him to Biederman saying, “Don’t be fooled though. Underneath all those swastikas, he’s a real prick”. It was a line delivered with perfect comic timing I might add.

Let’s Go to Prison has been forgotten by mass audiences, but I still think it’s a fairly funny movie with a very original idea, despite somewhat unoriginal tropes being used to fill in the cracks. It’s ridiculous, and it’s not for everyone, but if you like a “crude humor” comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously, you might appreciate it more than you would think.

The replay value is strong with this one.