Let’s Go to Prison

Oh gee, let’s not. Jim Hogshire’s 1994 book You Are Going to Prison becomes a coarse, laughless comedy about a career criminal (Dax Shepard) who swears revenge on the judge who sent him up—then, finding that the judge has died, transfers his ire to the man’s vainglorious son (Will Arnett). Writers Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon and Michael Patrick Jann graft a dimwit story onto Hogshire’s book, then toss in every dumb prison joke they can imagine—and most of what they can imagine, it seems, has to do with what might happen to an unwary inmate in the shower (prison rape is apparently the only kind that’s still OK to joke about). The director is identified as one Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show), though it’s hard to see what he did to earn the credit; the actors just wander back and forth in front of the camera.