Mitchell’s MASH THAT FLICK™

Hi and welcome to Mitchell’s MASH THAT FLICK, in which I Mitchell Kennedy literally destroy a movie.

Today I will destroy a newish movie out of Lithuania, of all places! The name: Fresh From Prison and I don’t know who translated it but Karolis reassures me that it is something more like FLESH (with an L) From Prison.

But it doesn’t make much of a difference, because this is a TERRIBLE movie. Protagonist Bronius has just completed a three-year stint in a men’s correctional facility (read: prison!) for a crime (incidental manslaughter, for Pete’s sake) he didn’t even commit. We find this out almost too soon as Bronius is reunited with his old friend and lover Tommy, for whom Bronius took the fall for the crime I just mentioned, but who now feels only a slight and conflicted obligation towards his altruistic ex.

See, Tommy is now a novitiate in an Orthodox monastery in the remote and backward Latvian village of Fluca or Flutza. Meanwhile Bronius only wants to know, ‘Hey, Tommy, when will we go to bed together like in the good old days?’ but Tommy has taken a vow of celibacy (for crying out loud) and the brothers superior of the compound in which Bronius finds himself a guest or a prisoner keep very close tabs on all the boys.

So almost immediately Bronius is faced with a possibly life-altering decision, as though getting out of prison were not stressful enough: stay with his ‘friend’ Tommy and convince Tommy to give up the religious rigmarole, or give up Tommy to the clutches of the diabolical sect. We are hardly given a chance to catch our breaths before all of this happens.

Too fast, too breathtaking! We are supposed to ask ourselves, what will Bronius decide to do? Will he overstay his visit and be tied to a cross and tortured by the brothers with the consent of his last friend in the world, or will he escape back into the relative freedom of northern Lithuania alone? I for one don’t care, and I refuse to find out.

(sounds of Mitchell smashing and stomping on a DVD)

No puppies! Zero puppies!