Oz
- Director: Adam Bernstein et al.
- Writer: Tom Fontana et al.
- Producer: Jim Finnerty; Tom Fontana; Barry Levinson
CGiii Comment
It certainly leaves an impression...we're all gay in prison.
The brutality, racism, hypocrisy are all dealt with...with unflinching directness.
The straight-to-camera stuff is an unnecessary gimmick that falls flat on its face.
If the audience wants to see what men do with men in a men-only place...then, they got what they wanted.
Pretty damn powerful.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Oz chronicles life inside an experimental cell block in the Oswald Maximum Security Correctional Facility: Level Four called Emerald City. Under unit manager Tim McManus and Warden Leo Glynn, the inmates in Em City all struggle to fulfill their own needs. Some fight for power; either power over the drug trade or power over the other inmate factions. Others want money, either through slinging 'tits' (drugs), gambling or other scams. Others, Corrections officers and inmates alike, simply want to survive long enough to make parole or even to see tomorrow. The show gives a no-holds-barred account of prison life with all the plots, subplots and conflicts given context and explanation by the show's wheelchair-bound narrator, Augustus Hill.
Cast & Characters
Ernie Hudson as Warden Leo Glynn;
Harold Perrineau as Augustus Hill;
Lee Tergesen as Tobias Beecher;
J.K. Simmons as Vern Schillinger;
Dean Winters as Ryan O'Reily;
Terry Kinney as Tim McManus;
Rita Moreno as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo;
George Morfogen as Bob Rebadow;
Eamonn Walker as Kareem Said;
B.D. Wong as Father Ray Mukada;
Kirk Acevedo as Miguel Alvarez;
Philip Scozzarella as Officer Joseph Mineo;
Scott William Winters as Cyril O'Reily;
Lauren Velez as Dr. Gloria Nathan;
Chuck Zito as Chucky Pancamo