Cheap Down Time (DVD) (Sean Wilson (II)) Price

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Customer Reviews of Down Time

Down Time: Doing Time in Prison................
I first came across this movie by accident. I was renting movies and saw the movie box but unfortunately at the time it was only in DVD and it had been rented. This unfolds and is well developed from its beginning, middle, and ending. It is about a man involved in drug dealing. He gets arrested and is brought into the criminal justice system to face the charges in which he ends up incarcerated.

While "doing his time" he comes across different situations: a past that he leaves behind, power struggles in prison in which the strong dominate the weak, a form of social darwinism. The lead character also confronts one important link in his life: what brought him into the criminal system was, for a large part, drugs and the illegal market and the decision to take the big risk.

The movie also portrays gangs and how they control and manage the internal distribution of drugs inside prison. I am sure there are other avenues that take place beforehand; what is presented is once the drugs arrive and how it is distributed.

Another important piece that I took notice is how many convicts took on escapism by using and self medicating with drugs. This, no doubt, left me thinking about how they have to survive, cope, and deal with incarceration on a day by day basis. And it probably, at least to them, would be more convenient and make more sense, to escape their present environment if only for a moment.

I think this is a good movie to watch in helping people understand how certain behaviors in deaing with their environments (social, economic, political) can entice others to look into the "illegal" avenue and take a big risk getting to the big bucks.

I would highly recommend this movie to those viewers that can and are willing to look at someone else's environment without passing judgment.

By the way, I was also surprise that the central character is caucasin and not African-American or Hispanic....This took me by surprise, largely, because most movies I have seen have been portraying African-Americans and Hispanics as the criminals.

This is Indie Film Making!
I am a big fan of low budget independent filmmaking and Sean Wilson (11) Down Time is a maverick achievement. Shot on a shoe string budget (check the stats), this is no Hollywood action film, but what you get is from the gut film making. Gritty performances by WilliamVan Nolan and Sam McBride make this a stand out film in the low budget arena. Some of the card playing scenes reminded me of the film Clerks (1994) with lots of off the wall snappy dialogue. You could also compare it to some the jail scenes in Jim Jarmusch's Down by law (1986) both films have lots of long still shots that just kind of hand there and make you feel the oppressive boredom of prison life.
Sure there are some technical problems with this film and some of the side characters acting is weak but you have to be able to over look that. Down Time is what independent filmmaking is all about.