The Muthers
(1976)
Director: Cirio H. Santiago
Cast: Jayne Kennedy, Jeannie Bell, Rosanne Katon
Though
it may not be obvious by the writing I do on this web site, I treat
life quite seriously for the most part. Week after week, my highest
priorities are things that have to do with the upkeep of my personal
life, such as giving a good enough effort at my job so I won't be
fired, or making time to do necessary things from buying groceries to
doing my income taxes. Sometimes my serious side even drifts onto this
web site, when I devote time to looking at a serious movie like That
Championship Season.
But I think that by a look at the majority of movies I review at The
Unknown Movies, I subscribe to the theory that, "All work and no play
make Jack a dull boy." More often than not, when I reserve time to
watching movies either for The Unknown Movies or simply for pleasure,
the movies that I watch may be considered belonging to the "B" movie
category. And not just a few categories inside that "B" movie category
- I have been striving from the start to review examples of a whole
bunch of different kinds of "B" movies. For example, several times I
have looked at slasher movies, such as Slaughter High
and Madman.
Tough cop movies have been another favorite movie genre, from Strange
Shadows In An Empty Room to 10 To Midnight.
Giant monster movies, a favorite subject of many other "B" movie review
web sites, also are an interest of mine, with Godzilla Vs. King
Ghidora
one example that I've examined. Other "B" movie genres I've covered
include spaghetti westerns, martial art movies, teenage sex comedies,
zombie films, and post-apocalypse epics.
As you can see from the examples that I listed in the
previous paragraph, I have been trying to cover at least one example of
every "B" movie genre for this web site. One reason is that variety is
the spice of life, and the other reason is to try and give every
visitor to The Unknown Movies at least one movie that may strike their
interest and give them cause to return to my web site sometime again in
the future. However, if you have carefully looked at all of the "B"
movies I have reviewed, possibly you will have seen that there is one
"B" movie genre that until now I have not reviewed even one example of.
And that genre is the WIP genre. If you don't know what that stands
for, it means "Women In Prison". With the knowledge that I haven't
reviewed in the past any WIP movies, you are probably very surprised.
After all, doesn't the WIP genre offer all kinds of tantilizing
delights? There are brutal wardens, lesbianism, cat fights, lesbianism,
shower scenes, lesbianism, guards having sex with inmates, and
lesbianism. Well, you would think with all that (and more) stuff in WIP
movies, I would have covered at least one WIP movie by now. But you may
be surprised by this confession: For some reason, WIP movies fail to
move me. It may be because they often involve innocent people
imprisoned, and I've confessed in the past one personal fear of mine is
to be jailed for something I didn't do. It may be because I find the
atmosphere in these movies to generally be downbeat and depressing.
Whatever the reason (or reasons) may be, one WIP movie after another
has failed to entertain me. Even what's considered the queen of WIP
movies - Chained
Heat - didn't make me happy to have watched it.
For quite some time, I have been telling myself that I
should review at least one WIP movie for The Unknown Movies. But
understanding my past disappointments with the genre, you can probably
see why I was reluctant to take on the task. But not that long ago, I
found a copy of the
movie The Muthers
in a thrift store, and my subsequent research of it suggested that this
WIP movie might be easier to sit through than the others I watched.
Namely because it isn't totally a WIP film - although there is a
women's prison, not all of the events of the movie take place in it.
Another interesting factor about The Muthers
was that the writer, director, and producer was prolific Filipino movie
maker
Cirio H. Santiago, who a few years earlier participated in the making
some pretty
popular WIP movies like The Big Bird Cage.
So I was lead to believe Santiago may have learned something from those
earlier movies. The movie is centered on two women, Kelly (Bell, TNT Jackson)
and Angie (Katon, Prime Time),
two modern-day pirates who with their crew attack rich people on the
sea, using their loot to help the poor. One day, the two women are
visited by a government official who promises the government will look
the other way regarding their piracy if they go undercover on a special
assignment. A brute by the name of Montiero (Tony Carreon, Styrker)
is running a prison camp slash coffee plantation where dozens of women
are held captive, and the government wants to know just what's going on
there. Kelly and Angie take the assignment, in part due to the news
that Kelly's sister Sandra is being held captive in the camp. Once in
the camp, disguised as newly arrived prisoners, Kelly and Angie get to
know two other women prisoners, trustee Marcie (Trina Parks, Darktown Strutters)
and Serena (Kennedy), mistress of warden Montiero. But even with all
four women working together, it soon becomes clear that finding Sandra
and getting out unscathed won't be easy.
I am pretty confident that for most people, that above
plot description sounds more or less like a standard women in prison
movie that came out of the 1970s. But The Muthers
has one attribute that not only makes it stick out from other women in
prison movies of any era, but also just about any other "B" movie (as
well as a whole bunch of "A" movies) you can think of. If you are
familiar with the actresses in the cast, you have probably already
figured it out, but if not, I'll tell you now: All of the principle
women parts in the movie - Kelly, Angie, Marcie, and Serena - happen to
be played by African-American women. Even if you haven't watched as
many movies as I have, you have probably seen that finding a movie with
the lead being played by an African-American woman is rare, and it's
even rarer to find a movie with several African-American women up front
and center in the action. So Cirio H. Santiago deserves some kudos for
this atypical casting. Also, he deserves some credit for getting all
four women to give spunky performances all throughout the movie. Though
the women aren't great actresses, their enthusiasm gives the movie some
genuine energy. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long in watching the
movie when it becomes clear that the women are doing more for the movie
than the movie is doing for them. For example, the movie doesn't do the
actresses any
favors
when it comes to showing them in action. While there are indications
that some of them may know how to do physical stunts (one of the
actresses is given several opportunities to do backflips and other
acrobatics), the choreography of their fight sequences (either martial
art or battles involving firearms) is so inept it
feels like not only have the women have never seen a fight before, they
were given very little instruction by the choreographer as to how to
fight.
But the disappointing construction of these female
protagonists goes beyond the shabby way they are put through in the
action sequences. These four female characters, to put it
bluntly, are very weakly written. They show no real past, no indication
as to where they came from and little as to why they do the things that
they do. There is little emotion coming from them; for example, when
Kelly learns that her sister has been kidnapped and is being held
prisoner, all she does is moan, "Oh no", showing no other sign of
concern. These characters don't become real people, and there is very
little that differentiates them from each other. In the end, they are
just devices that do the bare
minimum so that the plot can advance. That is, if you can really call
the plot of The
Muthers
a bona fide plot. The script problems extend to this portion of the
movie as well. For starters, the movie has a poor sense of where it is.
There are a lot of Asian people seen, and a cobra makes an appearance
at one point, but there's one line of dialogue that suggests the events
are taking place in Central or South America. But the question of
location is nothing compared to how the majority of the movie unfolds.
Though the movie runs only eighty-two minutes long, there is a
considerable amount of padding on display. When there is the inevitable
Great Escape from the prison, you might think that the level of tension
and excitement would increase considerably. But seconds after running
away from the camp, the protagonists slow their fleeing to a casual
walk, soon afterwards sitting around in a campsite for a considerable
amount of time.
If you are a fan of women in prison movies, you might be
thinking something along the lines of, "I don't care about stuff like
poor script writing, all I care about is seeing those tantalizing
ingredients found in your typical women in prison movies." Well, I'm
here to inform those people that they will be sorely disappointed by
the depiction of the women prison found in The Muthers -
and since I don't like women in prison movies, you can guess my
critique will be more hostile than what comes from those people. It's a
pretty cheap-looking prison, with only a few grass huts and one guard
tower on display. There are no catfights, sex, or lesbianism seen at
any moment. There is one shower sequence, but only one woman is seen
topless. (And that is one of only two brief scenes of nudity in the
entire film.) Not only are the prime ingredients missing, but so is the
tone that you would expect. For the longest time, it seems that this
prison plantation isn't actually a bad place to be. The inmates aren't
seen doing that much work, they get to have makeshift picnics, and
there is very little actual suffering by anyone for the longest time.
Even the warden doesn't come across as such a bad fellow for the most
part, with him devoting more time to talking tough than actually doing
anything that would be considered cruel or evil. Even when the warden
does start to act more like a villain, Carreon's performance is so laid
back that he just comes across as a rude person rather than someone
deserving of his just desserts. As you can see, the problems of The Muthers go
beyond incorrect spelling, and the movie is proof that filmmaker Cirio
H. Santiago's prolific career was devoted more to quantity than quality.
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See also: Bloodfist 3, Escape From El Diablo, Felon
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