In Hell

A 2003 movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, and quite possibly one of his darker works.

Kyle Le Blanc (Van Damme) is an American working and living with his wife in Russia. After his wife is raped and killed at home and the criminal gets off due to lack of evidence; a vengeful Kyle shoots the man outside the courthouse in turn. As a result, he gets sentenced to a sinister and violent prison where the prisoners are forced into death-matches for the warden's amusement.

Unlike most of Van Damme's previous movies, his signature martial arts don't play a role, but the fights are portrayed in a more realistic manner. Fan response has received his performance in this film very well.


 * Badass Bookworm: Prisoner 451, who has a reputation for killing cellmates, reads books that he collects and stores on his side of the cell he shares with Kyle.
 * Being Tortured Makes You Evil
 * Bittersweet Ending:.
 * Boring Invincible Hero: Subverted all the way to hell with Kyle. Sure, he's the main character, but he loses about as much as he wins (in a departure from Van Damme's past characters).
 * Break the Cutie
 * Butt Monkey: Poor Billy.
 * Chekhov's Gun: Every time he's placed in solitary confinement, Kyle hears a prisoner on the other side of the wall moaning loudly, and he pounds on the wall as a way to quiet the other prisoner down..
 * Depraved Homosexual: Andre, the leader of the prison Mafia, to whom the chief guard sells Billy every night.
 * Determinator: Kyle.
 * Driven to Suicide: At one point Kyle comes close to the brink of this...but the sight of a moth in the cell, the only other sign of life in the darkness of his current surroundings, reminds him of his wife's fervor for life and influences him to keep on going.
 * For the Evulz: One gets the feeling this is why the Complete Monsters in this film do what they do.
 * Hellhole Prison: The movie's title should be the first clue...
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: Kyle is this with both Billy and Prisoner 451.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Prisoner 451 is played by NFL linebacker Lawrence Taylor.
 * Karmic Death: Kyle kills Andre during one of the warden's betting-fights..
 * Kill It with Fire: The reason is in prison in the first place.
 * No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The vicious masked prisoner Valya beats his opponents to death, and is thus far the only prisoner to be undefeated in the corrupt warden's betting-brawls.
 * The Obi-Wan: Prisoner 451 later becomes this to Kyle.
 * Oh Crap: Billy's reaction right before his first Prison Rape experience..
 * Only Known by Their Nickname: Prisoner 451.
 * Prison Rape: Newly-arrived inmate Billy gets selected for this right off the bat, and it's implied that he's subjected to this every night afterward.
 * Rape as Backstory: The fate Kyle's wife suffered, in addition to being murdered afterwards..
 * Rape as Drama
 * Scary Black Man: Prisoner 451, and not without reason--every cell-mate he's had before Kyle has gotten their tongues ripped out.
 * Smug Snake: The warden, the chief guard, and Andre the prison Mafia leader.
 * Working on the Chain Gang