Lockdown (film)

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Lockdown
The movie poster for Lockdown.
Directed by	John Luessenhop
Produced by	Mark Burg Jeff Clanagan Oren Koules Stevie Lockett
Written by	Preston A. Whitmore II
Starring	Richard T. Jones Gabriel Casseus Master P Bill Nunn Clifton Powell Sticky Fingaz De'aundre Bonds Joe Torry
Music by	John Frizzell
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date(s)	September 15, 2000 (International release), February 14, 2003 (US release)
Running time	105 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Lockdown is a 2000 drama film, starring Richard T. Jones, Clifton Powell, and Master P.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Avery Montgomery (Jones) is taking time off from college to spend time with his girlfriend Krista (Melissa De Sousa) and help raise their young son, and spend time on his other love in life, swimming, and despite the lack of black swimmers, he ignored the odds and stereotypes and developed championship level, possibly Olympic ability, and as a result of a particularly impressive win he gets the opportunity for a possible scholarship after a post race chat with a college scout.

Cashmere (Casseus) despite his lack of moral center and his lifestyle as a crack dealer and thug, happens to be one of Avery's best friends since childhood and despite the fact that their personalities and lifestyles are night and day, Avery has always been a levelheaded straightedge that stayed out of trouble, they are able to keep a separation and not let it affect their friendship as Cashmere has always been enough of a friend to keep it away from Avery and Dre (Bonds) the other part of the trio who has also been in since childhood.

Earlier in the day before the swim meet, Cashmere had a run in with Broadway, another dealer who works under Cashmere in the hierarchy, In a hierarchy system of drug dealing like the above people employ dealers to work under them and those dealers are handed a certain amount of product and are expected to return with the corresponding amount of money (5 $10 rocks he's expected to bring back $50 or else get beat up or killed) similar to a business keeping the cash register even. Broadway happened to be short in his return and weather it was the first time he had done this or not is unknown but it angered Cashmere who proceeded to knock the wind out of him and kick him down a flight of metal stairs, pulling out a gun and pointing it to assert power and say "what now bitch?" when he tried to get up and fight.

Broadway knowing he can't fight a gun, gives up and runs off but vows to get revenge and after an attempted robbery later on in the day where he shoots and kills a young girl at a drivethrough he wipes off the gun and tosses it into the backseat of Cashmeres open convertible when he is out of the car, which looks similar enough to his for a possible mistaken identity case.

After the swim meet, Cashmere and Dre who were there to cheer him on, prod Avery to come out and celebrate his big victory with them, Avery, who wants to spend some time with Krista instead, initially resists but when even she tells him to go out he changes his mind and hops in the car and they drive off. At a certain point, Dre, who is riding in the backseat, finds the gun. "yo cas, fucks this man?" dre asks because he thought he violated their unwritten rule that he keep the thug life at home including his gun, "what are you talking about, mines at home?" Cashmere responded. Then the three of them realized that they had a strange gun in their possession and they had no idea where it came from and what it was used for.

As they were arguing over how to get rid of it, some cops who spotted them and thought their car matched broadways, came up behind them and pulled them over. One of them, A female officer, orders them out of the car at gunpoint which they comply to but a few moments later being a dog and trying to protect his owner cashmere's Pitbull leaps on of the car and runs towards the officer who shoots him dead in self defense, this angers Cashmere who reaches for the gun and manages to cock it and point it before being shot in the shoulder and incapacitaed.

After being convicted in court of unnamed charges (most likely would be Robbery, Murder and accessories to the two) the three are sent to the same medium security prison to serve their sentences, just like their different personalities each ones experience is different, Cashmere who is tough and gangsta, immediately makes his presence known including his new cellmate who he beats up and bitches, Dre who is a physically and mentally weak follower, gets beat up and raped by his new cellmate , a vicious white supremicist named "graffiti" (David "shark" Fralik) who rapes him, who controls a lot of the prisons drug flow and who's main rival inside is "cleanup" (Master P) another trafficker who's close to Cashmere and Cashmere used to sell under before he went inside first and cashmere took over the business for him. Cashmere is tough and connected but Cleanup is a little higher up the foodchain in both and Cashmere, knowing his place, submits to it and now works for him inside as well, he is also like cashmeres big brother in the chain, and cashmere gets the privilages and protection that come with having one.

A man named Malachi Young (Clifton Powell) is a mentally and physically tough and strong inmate who through his strength and toughness, and his seniority has earned enough respect for the right to go "solo" (keeping to yourself and being physically left alone by other inmates without the need for any of their protection and mentally able to not need them for company either as he spent most of his time reading ) and is Averys new cellmate. Avery meanwhile, who has most likely never been in any type of trouble in his life, let alone in prison. has a lot of internal anger over being locked down, especially for no reason. When Avery and Maliki meet, Avery on top of trying to "bitch em first" like Cashmere did and as he was taught also just wanted to take his anger out on somebody and throws a punch at him. Maliki, who has been inside 18 years and knows every trick in the book, sees it coming like a crystal ball and ducks, slamming Avery against the bars and pinning him so he cant move, gets inches from his face and spitting the fire of a man locked down that long, tells him that he's solo, has no desire to hurt or bitch him (beyond not having to defend yourself another privilge of the status is not needing to hurt anybody else either) and as long has he doesn't ever bring drama back to his life inside, they can develop have love for each other and exist in peace plus Young would "raise" him under his protection.

As The three friends move in their separate directions, they get further and further apart, Cashmere grows under the protection and connections of cleanup, even if in a nagative way, continuing to sell for him, Avery Grows under Maliki (who is very similar to him when he first started) who teaches him how to deal with being locked down and avery, despite some setbacks, adjusts relatively well. Dre, is the worst off, continuing to get raped by Graffiti and his Aryan friends, he starts to go on a mental and physical downslide, including as an escape, starting to shoot the heroin he got as a so called "perk" of selling it for Graffiti, getting addicted beyind the point of no return, and eventually, Cleanup who like all prison traffickers, is looking to eliminate his rival and for somebody to do the dirty work, bribes the now Junkie into stabbing him to death for a bag and while he was in the middle of his murderous frenzy, a corrupt guard named Perez (who was in business with graffiti) Hits Dre so hard with his nightstick that he crushes his skull and kills him.

Meanwhile, Charles Pierce, The College Scout who Avery Met on his fateful night, also happened to be an accomplished lawyer and knew without being told that Avery Was wrongfully convicted and decided to help his release efforts. Avery was resentful and resistant at first, towards both Pierce and Krista, at one point yelling at her to never come back because it would do them both better, but eventually accepted both their visitations and that they could only help. One day, Dre who was out around the prison comes back to his cell to find an angry Graffiti waiting for him to return, Dre, who just started to build up some resistance to the bitching and Graffiti's 'authority" basically tells him to shove it and then when Graffiti tries to slap him around to put him back in his place, Dre's balls reach their biggest point as he jumps all over graffiti , punching him, kicking him and trying to strangle him, Graffiti, who's twice his size, eventually gets the upper hand back and starts to beat him up bad, then Avery who happened to be on his way to see Dre, despite Maliki's warnings not to (because a bitch is property and you don't mess with another inmates property which can mean even the simple smalltalk Avery wanted) sees him getting beat to death and jumps in to protect him. Avery who's strong and muscular and graffiti's size jumps on him and beats him to a pulp but not before a bunch of grafittis guys jump on Avery and Maliki has to save him, beating up several of them and throwing over the second floor railing onto a table.

Maliki, Avery, Graffiti, Dre and all else involved had to go to a disciplinary hearing, in which Maliki, in the ultimate act of unselfishness and sacrifice, after being allowed to go in first, even though he has almost nothing to do with most the incident, takes responsibility for the entire thing to spare avery a dirty discipline record and assault charge, and then in an unexplained and unnecessary move, flies into a rage in front of the board, screaming and throwing chairs around the room and getting shipped out to another prison for his actions, but at this point Avery has gleaned enough that he can now be solo like Maliki and it won't be a huge loss for him. Avery then gets a new cellmate who tries the same greeting to Avery and Avery gives him the same response he got from Maliki and he becomes his mentor.

Meanwhile, Somebody has been snitching and busting cleanup's drug mules and he comes to the conclusion that Avery is the snitch which is not true but he assumes anyways and wants Cashmere to take care of him, and during a riot in the prison yard (which happens to break out at the same time Charles Pierce brought prison officials a dying declaration from Broadway right before he hung himself in prison doing his own time, which meant averys immediate release) goes up to Avery and stabs him, Avery fights through the stab wound and tries to fight Cashmere off for his life and Cleanup, seeing he's not doing the proper job, tries to do the deed himself but while Avery is now fighting off cleanup, Cashmere who still had love for Avery despite their differences inside comes up behind Cleanup and stabs him to death.

Avery, After a minute of wondering if he could still trust him, then realizes that it was all in the game and even though he didn't see the broadway letter yet, realized inside that Cashmere who he originally blamed for getting him locked up, didn't do anything either afterall, Meanwhile, an angry rifle toting guard up in the tower orders Cashmere, who is still holding the shank, to drop it, and Cashmere either because he somehow didn't hear it or just out of spite, keeps holding it and just as he and Avery are about to embrace the guard unloads a shot into his back, killing him instantly.

Prison Officials get to Avery before anything else can potentially happen and he gets released into the waiting arms of Krista and his son, who he lives happily ever after with.