Civil Brand, directed by Neema Barnette, asks us to believe that twenty-five African American female inmates of a racially segregated Tennessee prison won a lawsuit against administrators to end a reign of terror. The prison is maximum security Whitehead Correctional Institute, which is managed by a corporation in the private sector that makes up rules without public accountability. (The name appears to be an anagram of the L.A. County women’s prison, the Sybil Brand Institute for Women.) In addition to sporadic narration by Sabrina (played by DaBrat), who talks directly to the camera in the style of the television series Oz, filmviewers witness the depth of the mental and physical brutality, the slave labor to make clothes for department stores, and forced sex enjoyed by Captain Dees (played by Clifton Powell) as well as efforts to collect evidence so that part-time guard and law student Michael (played by Mos Def) can support the legal action. Some of the mildest prisoners become violent, and some of the most violent are shrewd enough to remain alive to pursue the mythical successful lawsuit. Although the women-in-prison scenario is far less dramatic than The Last Castle (2001), the collective mobilization of prisoners in both stories is too fantastic to have any credibility, thus puncturing the possibility that either would invite a serious examination of badly needed prison reform and an end to the Prison/Industrial Complex. MH