This is the third part in what must be one of the strangest, most specific movie franchises ever. The 'Penitentiary' series is about a prison where boxing tournaments seem to be par for the course. Despite the clearly unlikely set-up, the first film was actually a reasonably good blaxploitation prison drama. This third instalment, despite covering much the same ground, adopts a much different approach. It isn't so much a drama as a comedy, with all manner of ridiculous scenes. There is even homage to the most famous scene from the first film where the hero Too Sweet engages in an extended fight with a scary fellow inmate within the close confines of his cell. In this flick, Too Sweet again fights another adversary in his cell but this time it's a deranged midget! Like the scene from the first movie, this is also the best sequence in the film. Except this one really seems like a parody of the first in its sheer silliness. The midget is a psychotic madman who lives in chains in a dungeon underneath the prison, and he is brought out to batter prisoners who go against the grain. It's monumentally daft of course but is in keeping with the general tone of the entire film which is consistently ridiculous. To be fair, the movie does have some genuine funny parts too, such as when Too Sweet is driven to jail at the beginning to the melancholic sound of a saxophone, only for the camera to pan down and see that some fellow inmate is actually playing this music in the van. Penitentiary III is a film for those who want to watch a film for a few laughs with a couple of beers. It has its moments but overstays its welcome.

After beginning in a very sort of "afro-Rocky" way, unsung berserk exploitation director, Jamaa Fanaka, return to his blaxploitation roots with this one. Tony Geary, former "General Hospital" star, returns to his roots as well, with his strangest film since he got raunchy with future "Ilsa" Dyanne Thorne, in "Blood Sabbath" (1972). Leon Isaac Kennedy returns as "Too Sweet", and ends up boxing, in prison, again. But this time he meets an eventually helpful, mystical dwarf,"The Midnight Thud", who teaches him Kung Fu when not smoking crack. Geary gets all strange as the nasty "Serengeti", and seems to be channeling Chris Walken throughout. Fanaka knocks this out of our normal dimension, but doesn't quite equal some of his other, less profitable work, like "Welcome Home Brother Charles" (aka "Soul Vengeance"), where other mystical midgets also assist the "hero".

This film is one of the greatest human achievements ever. A boxer, "Too Sweet," framed for murder, is sent to prison where he must fight a crack smoking, inmate raping, kung fu midget called the "Midnight Thud." At first "Midnight" is a snarling beast, the willing retainer of another homosexual inmate - Serengetti - and his tranny 'girlfriend' and does nothing but smoke crack in his dungeon (yes, there is a dungeon) beneath the prison and snarl. Episodically he is released by his handlers (prison guards wearing welding suits and masks!) to discipline various inmates. In fact, his mere existence seems to threaten the manhood of the entire prison. There is evidently a LOT of crack smoking going on down there, since the floor of the dungeon is knee high in billowing crack smoke. Also, there are no women in this film, only transexuals. Even Too Sweets 'conjugal visit' near the end was clearly not a (biological) woman.Later we discover 'Thud' is a great martial arts trainer and enjoys smoking expensive tobacco from fancy pipes (as well as crack), and he eventually trains Too Sweet - in a Rocky style montage episode - to win the prison boxing match. Wouldn't you win too if a three foot crack addict was yelling "ENEMA TOO SWEET!" in YOUR corner?The absurdity of this movie isn't a slow burn but a head scratching, perfectly ballistic sustained crescendo; it never lets up, escalating into a jaw dropping finale. Bravo!

How can you go wrong with a plot like "A man is framed for murder and sent to prison. He is beaten and tortured, then forced to fight the prison's worst killer, a martial-arts fighting midget called Thud." ??This is a B-grade pen movie but it is so bad that it's actually a lot of laughs. I saw this movie ten years ago when I was 16 but I bet I'd enjoy it again if I were to watch it now.7/10