Caged Heat

Jonathan Demme’s first film, Caged Heat details the exploits of several female prisoners and follows their attempts at surviving and, eventually, escaping. There’s ultimately never a point at which Caged Heat is able to overcome its palpably minuscule budget, as Demme, working from his own script, generally proves unable to elicit a single compelling performance from a cast comprised entirely of amateurs – with the decidedly uninvolving atmosphere compounded by a meandering, episodic narrative structure. And although the first-time director does manage to infuse the proceedings with small chunks of welcome style (eg the various dream sequences), Caged Heat predominantly comes off as a fairly disposable (and entirely forgettable) debut for a filmmaker who would go onto much bigger and better things.

** out of ****