I've seen the "prison is bad" thing done many times before, especially with the pure evil warden/guard and the good guy slowly dismantled. Oz did it better, so did some other films I forgot. But a lot of films did it like this one but a bit worse. (Lock Up, etc). The acting was good and I like the message, and I like how it shows how things can be so unfair for people. But I think the movie was too heavy handed and one dimensional and basically very cheesy. Good guy forced through terrible experiences by unfair circumstances and bad people. It was one step short of having the bad guys kicking kittens and good guys bandaging the wounded kitties with tears in their eyes. It became quite sickly and almost ruined the message by making it seem so one sided. America is a movie making machine, but I wish they would learn to manage their cheese tendencies, the over the top emotional string pulling, the over the top string music, etc.