Jim Brown plays Curtis X. Hook, a man rightly convicted for driving getaway in a robbery at an oil refinery pay station, which ended with a lot of guys dying from arsenic gas. Curtis X. gets thrown in the pokey, but only he knows where the loot is hidden. Needless to say, it doesn't take long before everyone including other cons, crooks, guards and gangsters are all trying to get their hooks into Hook. The only conceivable road to a happy ending for him and his lady on the outside (Judy Pace) is to cook up a plan for bustin' out.

So when someone tells me "Jim Brown is starring in a 1973 prison-break movie", the only response they'll get from me is "Where? And When?" Imagine then, my mild disappointment when The Slams didn't entirely deliver on its implied promise of bad-assery, taking it to the screws, and going over the wall. It wasn't horrible or anything, it just felt a little dialogue-heavy and action-light. Overall, I'd say fans of 70's-80's blacksploitation will find plenty of comfort in the familiar. Most others can stick to the genre-classics and not feel like they've really missed anything.