Lashville: Town of Justice Review

The premise here is that Tippi's character ran over a dog, and she and her friend (a passenger in the car) are sentenced to 50 strokes with a birch. Her friend was sentenced in order to further punish Tippi, who is made to watch before she gets her own taste of the birch. Two other prisoners are sentenced to the same punishment on unrelated charges.

All four models were chained facedown onto a padded bench; their heads were turned to the side so that they faced the audience. There is no reason to break each punishment down individually as they are highly repetitive as it was virtually the exact same punishment just with a different face. However, each model does react somewhat differently to the birch.

The first model Gigi was less hysterical and she produced more high-pitched moaning and groaning.

The second model cried and sobbed more openly from the beginning, but with fewer tears overall.

The third model tried to stay strong and silent from the start, but slowly broke down into tears yet remained comparatively quiet throughout; her reactions were the weakest overall.

And as for Tippi, she was a loud mess from the get-go, holding nothing back and by the end of her punishment, she was openly blubbering!

In this film, three out of the four models had vivid reactions to the birch, which was the only instrument used to punish them. Of the four, the most extreme reactions came from Tippi's character who was already deeply upset at watching her friend being punished. Afterward, an interview is conducted with each of the models, I'm sure you can guess whose interview was the most dramatic.

In the end, Mood Pictures produced a quality judicial punishment film. It was released in between Prison Punishment Show and The Experiment, which was very fortunate because in terms of overall worthiness it falls squarely in between those two films.

The executioners here were Lady Mia and Julsci, both of whom struck brutally and showed no mercy to any of their victims at any time. But above all they were cold, detached and unemotional, and not sadistic; these were simply two professionals doing their job, which they performed excellently! A striking contrast was present here for the whole film between the two executioners (and the other employees) and the emotional crying victims. Their total, absolute disinterest and emotional detachment only served to heighten and further impassion each models already-intense suffering.

The setting here was reminiscent of the American South where barbecue is sacred and corporal punishment is still practiced in schools. The fact that Tippi and her friend were portraying characters that were not from the town and had a different culture cemented that. They were horrified by the brutal nature of the punishments they were to receive. The fact that corporal punishment and public humiliation were used here indicated that this town was in the 21st century yet possessed the conservative ideals of the 1950s. This film practically screamed: small-town redneck justice!

Another theme of this movie was the unfairness of the punishment meted out. The fact that Tippi's friend (who wasn't driving the car) was also punished was completely unjust as she was in no way responsible for the dog's death. Again, while she was punished to make Tippi suffer psychologically before her physical punishment and be crushed by guilt….it was still unnecessary from a legal point of view. So her friend was, in fact, innocent of any wrongdoing and was also punished simply for being present. An innocent victim being punished unjustly is a consistent theme of many of Pedro's movies, and the way it was implemented in this film added a psychological element which made an already intensely physical punishment even more traumatic for poor Tippi!

A problematic issue with this film was that the second model had tattoos which were not concealed. Said tattoos were on the victim's thighs right beneath her butt so, in the variety of camera angles used, they were visible. Highly Annoying!

As each punishment begins, the model is already chained down to the bench, so we are not shown them being stripped naked and restrained. One can imagine that Tippy, in particular, would have been protesting further the injustice of the whole ordeal and fighting the two executioners as they forcibly stripped and restrained her. Whether or not the character being portrayed would have been feisty or complaint is not even the point here though. If we could have gotten to watch each model (in character) being made to disrobe and then restrained to the bench, it would have been a nice warm-up to their punishment.

Also, there is nothing wrong with the padded bench in of itself, yet it was the only position used. By the third punishment, this became boring and tedious...same old..same old! The film would have been more entertaining had at least one more position been used. When you combine that same position with the fact that only one implement was used (the birch) - (which is historically accurate for Judicial punishments), this film became less and less exciting as time went on.