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Amos Lassen wrote on 02/20/2011:

“Locked Up”
A Different Kind of Love Story
Amos Lassen
“Locked Up” (TLA Releasing) is a tender and provocative love story. Filmed in a real prison the film is very entertaining. The two stars are excellent actors and the script is quite good even though the ending is quite unbelievable. Some of the scenes are so graphic that the film is very close to porn—there is a great deal of nudity and a real masturbation sequence and an extremely graphic rape scene which many may find as unacceptable but it is necessary to the story.
This is a film that many people will condemn; it is not for the weak or the homophobic but in the end it is really quite charming. Made in Germany in 2004 ad directed by Jorg Andreas it is a story of love in prison. It is a bit unbelievable in that two gay guys share a cell. Marcel Schlutt is a gay man playing a gay man on the screen and he is very, very believable. His black lover, Mike Seal, brings a breath of fresh air into the film. Their sex scenes together are highly provocative.
The company that made the movie is primarily known for making gay porn and that shows in the meager dialog between the two men. Porn actors rarely have important lines to say. The dialog, hence, at times, seems to be quite funny. Unlike the banality of many gay romantic movies, “Locked Up” is a step above.
We first meet Dennis (Schlutt) as he is being stripped and brought into a quite dreary German prison. What we see are hunky, burly prison guards who seemed to be fueled with raging hormones and skinny prisoners who are obviously servants to their stronger “husbands”. There is a frightening and hair raising shower scene and the guards seem to have no concern for the condition of the prisoners. Dennis learns to adapt quickly to prison life and discovers Mike with whom e shares a deep love,
The problem I had with the film is trying to understand its tone. While Dennis and Mike play out their love affair with seemingly real emotions, it is hard to imagine that they can exist in prison as young lovers do on the outside. They seem to be like petulant adolescents. When a guard separates them after they have shared a romantic interlude, Mike tells him that the (the guard) cannot keep them apart. It sounded how one would expect a young girl would speak to her parents after being caught kissing her boyfriend.
The characters reach no more than one dimension. What is really imprisoning the cast are the limitations of the script. This is why the ending seems not to fit.
Aside from the two leads, the rest of the acting is terrible unless you look at the movie as porn. For porn actors, the cast is outstanding but as serious actors, they have a long way to go.
The movie seems to be testing just how far it can go and in this it succeeds. It is a movie for those who like innovative, independent filmmaking. All of the standard ingredients for a prison movie are here and thrown into is a gay romance. The plot shifts between
brutal realism and romantic fantasy and there is a lot of eye candy to see. It is, however, the two star actors that save the film. Some of the things that you will see will make you uncomfortable and the horrific rape scene is not for the ill at ease. Yet the tender love story makes the film worth a look or two and the real sex scenes give the film a novel quality.

GERADnFL wrote on 07/15/2008:

i saw the original uncut version years back and thought that is waht i was geting but instead got this poorly edited cut to mangled dvd it brings tears to my eyes what was done in the cuts to this film . so don't hate this version hate the people the mangled it .

thanks

JSB wrote on 03/16/2007:

I went to see this film b/c it was in German and looked interesting, but my friend and I were both appalled by how bad it was. It's very flimsy material, poorly acted, the guy who "likes" to be spit on doesn't like it, and there's some nasty violence that's not sexy or relevant here. I'm amazed that anyone has liked this film, which felt like the script was written by a deranged 15 y.o. gay person struggling not to dislike himself and being gay.
It's not a story and it's not good enough to be porn, although it comes close to trying to be bad porn.
Don't bother.

getreal wrote on 06/14/2006:

This is a pretentiously bad movie that is pretending NOT to be a porno, when it has no real aspirations to be anything else. The majority of the cast is extremely limited in ability, and the "American" lead is a particularly bad actor (apparently simply being black makes one "hard"). What chemistry there was between the leads seems, at best, one-sided. The (uncut version of the) sex scene is mildly hot but felt obligatory. The film thinks it's an "art" film, but it is far from it. You'd be better off getting a real art film, or a real porno. This film exists in some dull limbo between the two.

Pucci (PMILLER2000@kc.rr.com) wrote on 01/08/2006:

Probably everyone who's going to see LOCKED UP has seen it. None the less, let me shed some light on what some of you claim to be a lack of sexual energy. What we have seen (and what I absolutely love--thanks to Marcel Schlutt as Dennis) is not the original German production. LOCKED UP is a soft porn version of the original, titled EINGELOCHT. I ordered it from Cazzo films in Berlin. It's 20 to 30 minutes longer. You'll see the full sex scene between Dennis and Mike in the cell. No soft cocks. You'll also be turned on by the sex play between the other inmates and guards. There are scenes in LOCKED UP that make to sense--like the boy who allows himself to be seen by the guards through the binocs. In EINGELOCHT that scene is a marvelously boner-producing activity. You get to see Dennis with a lovely hardon. Go to the internet and key-in Cazzo Films or the film title. It's not cheap, but it's worth every penny.