a movie review by: Linda Cook

1 star

Let's not, and say we did.

"Let's Go to Prison" just isn't funny. It tries, with its interesting enough premise, but it ends up being one prison-sex joke after another.

Dax Shepard ("Employee of the Month") stars as John, a guy who's pretty much been a loser since he was a little kid -- and he starts big, by stealing the Publishers Clearing House van and trying to cash the gigantic check.

He enters the correctional system while he's still in grade school. "If I had a nickel for every time I went to prison, I'd have 15 cents," he says.

Now he's out of prison again, and he's determined to get even with the judge who sent him away. He pretends to be a reporter who wants to follow a day in the life of the judge. To his horror, he discovers that the judge has passed away only three days beforehand.

What to do? Well, he figures he'll avenge himself on the judge's cold-hearted son, Nelson Biederman IV (Will Arnett, television's "Arrested Development"). He sets Nelson up for a felony arrest, and lo! and behold, Nelson is sent to prison. It's child's play for John to go back to prison, too, and become the cellmate of the hapless Nelson.

The terrified Nelson wins the attention of Barry (Chi McBride, "Annapolis"), who literally buys Nelson to be his, uh, "boyfriend."

This is a thinly disguised fish-out-of-water movie. John is in his element, but Nelson isn't -- that is, until one incident turns the tables in Nelson's favor. And John becomes a victim of his own scheme that hasn't gone as he planned.

The thing is, the whole idea of prison rape just isn't an appropriate subject for comedy. It's disturbing and vile, but not funny. It's another one of those mean-spirited so-called "comedies" in which most of what passes for humor is simply characters being cruel to each other.

Some of the other jokes are sort of entertaining, but mostly the gags focus on gross-out topics and the ever-present threat of assault. Viewers can take only so many disgusting-food jokes, literal toilet humor and stabbing scenarios before the whole thing becomes an exercise in tedium - much like a visit to a prison exercise yard.