weeds

Director: john d. hancock

Actor: nick nolte,rita taggart,ernie hudson,mark rolston

Data Published: Fri Oct 16 1987

Genres: Drama

Key Words: middle age romance,phony convict,prison,writing a play,one word title

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094304/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeds_(film)

Description: Weeds is a movie starring Nick Nolte, Rita Taggart, and Ernie Hudson. A San Quentin inmate, sentenced to life without parole, writes a play that catches the interest of a reporter.

Plot: Lee Umstetter (Nick Nolte) is incarcerated in San Quentin for armed robbery, serving "life without possibility" (with no chance of parole). After two failed suicide attempts, Lee begins to read books from the prison library. He attends a performance of Waiting for Godot given for the prisoners and is deeply moved. He begins to write plays about imprisonment and then stages them, too. One is a social-protest musical extravaganza about life in the penitentiary. It attracts visitors and earns Lee the regard of a San Francisco theatre reviewer (Rita Taggart) who persuades the governor to release him. Lee organises an acting troupe made up of former convicts: a shoplifter (William Forsythe), a murderer (Ernie Hudson), an embezzler (Lane Smith), a pimp (John Toles-Bey), a flasher (Mark Rolston), and others. Lee's work doesn't make the same impact outside the prison as it did inside. Touring in a camper, with no money, the men are torn by impulses to revert to their former criminal behaviour.