Since it's not clear which came first the juvenile offender boot camp, or the Catholic school for girls, I don't know whom to blame. But the mere fact that these two facilities are only a few hundred feet away from each other screams, "TROUBLE BREWING!" What could possibly be a more dangerous combination? A toxic waste dump next to a farm? A daycare center next to an attack dog training school? Or a nuclear plant next to an artillery range? Anyway... despite its unrealistic plot premise this really is a great forbidden love film.
Craig Sheffer stars as a hunk from the wrong side of the tracks now imprisoned in an "honor" boot camp without any wall or fences. Come on! That's just too tempting. Give them at least one fence with razor wire.
The camp's ONLY security is Jon Polito randomly threatening people with his double barrel shot gun. Shockingly the young Jon Polito isn't fat but he's still bald. Much like Patrick Stewart and Kevin Spacey he never had hair at any point in his life.
Since this is Hollywood only 10% of the prisoners are token blacks. Everyone else is a clean shaven English speaking Caucasian. Or perhaps the camp represents those criminals too clean to be in a real jail where everyone is black, has AIDS, and is gang affiliated.
The camp doesn't really seem that bad as we are never shown any horrors of prison life like gang rapes, beatings, or harsh conditions. Again, it's unclear if this is the film's intention to show a nice camp or just careless for not showing any hardships? Craig Sheffer predictably falls for Princess Irulan of 'Dune' (Virginia Madsen) during a dance arranged by the nuns for their sex starved teenage girls and the camps' criminal teenage boys. Again, this is just asking for trouble! The dance scene will go down in history as the only film to feature Prince's 'Computer Blue' besides 'Purple Rain' itself.
It's love at first sight for Sheffer and Madsen whom predictably agree to escape their respective prisons and meet later for a tryst at... a mausoleum. I've heard about people being too cheap to get a motel room but a mausoleum is just ridiculous. Are they trying to put on a show for the people inside? Sex in a mausoleum is just plain wrong even if both partners are alive.
Sheffer and Madsen's run off into the sunset also provides for even more unrealistic sequences, such as their race through the school electronic gate. See? Even the school has a gate. The boot camp should learn from the nuns. And Madsen failing to hear a helicopter approach until it's only a few feet away from her.
As I said, don't try and take this film too seriously otherwise you won't enjoy it. It's cute 80s fun.
