In a grim totalitarian near future married couples are allowed to have only one kid. John Brennick (a solid and engaging performance by Christopher Lambert) and his pregnant wife Karen (well played by the fetching Loryn Locklin) get arrested for trying to have a second child. They are both sent to a brutal subterranean maximum security penitentiary run by the cruel Prison Doctor Poe (a splendidly wicked Kurtwood Smith). Of course, John plans to escape and take Karen with him. Director Stuart Gordon relates the absorbing story at a brisk pace, does an expert job of maintaining a tough, gritty tone throughout, and stages the thrilling action scenes with rip-roaring verve (the climactic jailbreak sequence in particular is quite tense and stirring). The uniformly ace acting from a tip-top cast qualifies as another significant asset: Lambert and Locklin make for sympathetic leads, Smith excels in one of his customary bad guy roles, plus there are stellar supporting performances by Jeffrey Combs as flaky, bespectacled computer whiz D-Day, Lincoln Kilpatrick as wise trustee inmate Abraham, Tom Towles as mean roughhouse bully Stiggs, Vernon Wells as vicious top con Maddox, and Clifton Collins, Jr. as scrappy young punk Nino Gomez. David Eggby's fluid, polished cinematography, the nifty special effects, Frederic Talgorn's moody, rousing score, and a few dollops of grisly gore are all on the money effective and impressive. A very cool and satisfying science fiction film.