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Released by: Xenon Home Entertainment
Relesaed on: 6/20/2000
Director: Jamaa Fanaka
Cast: Leon Isaac Kennedy, Ernie Hudson, Mr. T., Rudy Rae Moore, Stephanie Mills, Eugenia Wright
Year: 1982
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The Movie:
Picking up pretty much right where the first film leaves off, Penitentiary 2 finds 'Too Sweet' out of the joint and living at his sister's place while he spends his days sweeping floors and doing manual labor at the local boxing ring where Mr. T (who plays himself here) rules the local amateur boxing scene.
One night, when his sister and her husband go away for the weekend with their son, Too Sweet decides it's prime time to entertain his lady friend and the two of them make with the romance. But little does Too Sweet know that his arch enemy from his time in the big house, Half Dead (played this time out by Ernie Hudson, Ghostbuster extraordinaire), has broken into his house and hid himself in the bathroom. Two Sweet's girlfriend goes to freshen up and have a shower, and Half Dead sees his chance to get even, so he locks the door and rapes her and kills her.
When Too Sweet finally decides she's been in there long enough, he finds out what's happened and a brawl between the two rivals ensues. Half Dead ends up on the wrong side of a toilet lid and hospitalized under police supervision. But it's not long before his cohorts break him out and he's back on his mission to take down Too Sweet once and for all.
Meanwhile, our hero has decided to make a shot at going pro in the boxing circuit and with the help of Mr. T and Seldom Seen, starts making the rounds and seems to have a pretty good shot at it. But once Two Sweet gets a shot at the title, is Half Dead really gonna sit back and let it happen? Of course not. Anything else is spoiler territory and I try not to go there.
With an infinitely higher camp factor working in it's favor, Penitentiary 2 doesn't have much of the grim and gritty atmosphere that the first one did and instead supplements it with insane roller boogie scenes, horny midgets on the prowl, jive charged dialogue and the always welcome presence of one Mr. Rudy Ray Moore, better known to all you rat soup eatin' motherfuckers as Dolemite.
It's a fun ride, and if you've ever wanted to see Mr. T. and Ernie Hudson go toe to toe, this is the movie for you.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Penitentiary 2 is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85.1. Colors are a bit faded and the print is grainy in a few spots with a bit of print damage here and there, but for the most part, it's a decent job and it's quite watchable. This transfer is on par with the job that Xenon did for the first Penitentiary film.
The Dolby Digital Stereo track isn't so hot. Sometimes dialogue is tough to understand and the mix tends to jump around quite a bit. For the most part, you can hear what's going on fairly well, but the low budget conditions under which the film was made really show on the mix here.
Fanaka contributes another commentary, and this time out he's a little more talkative than he was on the release for the first film, thought not by much. Some good information is covered here and it's interesting to hear him talk about the film and it's eclectic cast of performers and it's also interesting to hear about the financing that occurred for the sequel after the first film proved to be a money maker. There are also trailers for Penitentiary 1 and Penitentiary 2. The back of the keep case touts 'original production stills and outtakes' but there aren't on the disc as far as I could tell.
The Final Word:
It's hard to take this entry in the series seriously after the first films gritty approach, but fans of campy blaxploitation films will eat this one up.