Tanya Roberts tries to break free from her typecast image that stemmed from her infamous one-season stint on the highly successful "CHARLIE'S ANGELS" series and her turn as the title role in the atrociously awful camp classic, "SHEENA, QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE".
In "PURGATORY", Tanya Roberts is Carly. She and her best friend Melanie are vacationing in South Africa and make the fatal mistake of picking up a 'hunky' hitch-hiker in their jeep who turns out to be nothing more than a filthy drug runner. When their jeep is stopped at a military checkpoint run by an outfit of South African army officers, the hitch-hiker tries to make a run for it but is gunned down in a Sunflower field. As a result, his bag is searched by the officers who discover a reasonable amount of drugs and naturally, Carly and Melanie are arrested despite their pleas that they had nothing to do with this.
So into the filthy slammer Carly and Melanie go. As two naive westerners, their case is fed to the dogs and they are sentenced to a life sentence inside a female prison where they are sexually molested by prison guards and treated as outcasts by the 'local' prison inmates. Naturally, Tanya Roberts uses her 'sexuality' to try to get them out of this intense and hopeless situation as she makes moves to seduce the Warden of the female prison in order to buy a ticket out for their freedom.
"PURGATORY" comes off more as a sleazy exploitation flick rather than something dramatically serious that you could actually believe might have happened in real life. From the 'hosing down' sessions within the prison walls to the countless sex scenes we get to witness shared between Tanya Roberts and the Warden, this film finds its place among other cinematic gems such as "THE CONCRETE JUNGLE" and "THE BIG DOLL HOUSE".
While no one can really take this movie seriously, most men will find the eye candy gratuitously supplied by Tanya Roberts enough to suffice their appetites. Women should look elsewhere.
"PURGATORY" is a relatively hard movie to catch sight of these days - but if you do happen to see this on your TV Guide or find a dusty copy on video at your local store, give it a gander... it's actually pretty funny.
My Rating - 6 out of 10
