Oz : Out o' Time

Oz : Out o' Time (1999)

Genres - Drama, Thriller  |   Sub-Genres - Prime-Time Drama [TV], Prison Film  |   Run Time - 60 min.  |   Countries - United States  |  
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Synopsis by Josh Ralske

Alvarez (Kirk Acevedo) knows the Latinos want to kill him, and he'd rather go back to solitary than reveal who raped Glynn's (Ernie Hudson) daughter. His transfer to solitary is delayed, and when El Cid (Luis Guzman) and his boys come after him, Alvarez kills Ricardo (Juan Carlos Hernandez). Later, he laughs as he tells Glynn that Ricardo was the rapist, and he's been in Oz all along. Shirley Bellinger (Kathryn Erbe) gets a stay of execution because the authorities find out she's pregnant. She wants to be executed, but Sister Pete (Rita Moreno) gets Governor Devlin (Zeljko Ivanek) to commute her sentence. Wittlesey (Edie Falco), defending McManus (Terry Kinney), gets into a brawl with Claire Howell (Kristin Rohde). When Glynn criticizes McManus' behavior, McManus loudly accuses him of racial favoritism. Glynn allows the boxing championship, between Khan (Ernie Hudson, Jr.) and Cyril (Scott William Winters), to take place, but with no audience. Stanislofsky (Philip Casnoff) tips off Murphy (Robert Clohessy), who stops O'Reily (Dean Winters) from tampering with Khan's water. O'Reily cleverly invites their father (Kevin Conway) to visit to give Cyril a special kind of motivation. But the bout ends tragically, further inflaming racial tensions. Adebisi (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje) confronts Clayton Hughes (Seth Gilliam) about who killed his father. Pancamo (Chuck Zito) and El Cid (Luis Guzman) talk to Adebisi about staying focused on the drug trade, but Adebisi tells them there are "some things more important. . .than money." Schillinger (J.K. Simmons) approaches all the white inmates, even the Jewish Stanislofsky, to build racial solidarity, while Adebisi gets close to the Muslims, and to Hill (Harold Perrineau). When Murphy tries to crack down, and Hill gets sent to the hole for a minor infraction, the prison seems about to erupt. Documentarian Barbara Kopple (American Dream) directed this hard-hitting season finale.

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Keywords

prison, inmate, criminal, murder, life-of-crime, maximum-security, unrest, death-row