A bargain-basement prison-superhero genre hybrid, Corrective Measures is set in a world devastated by the emergence of Marvel-style “enhanced humans” and by a planet-wrecking catastrophe known as “the Pulse”. In response, a special mutant-containment prison, San Tiburon, has been established. With no single protagonist, Corrective Measures functions as an ensemble piece and as a showcase for some decent monster masks, throwaway fights, and tolerable CGI set to a cheesy blues soundtrack. In a supporting role as the Lobe, the most mysterious and formidable of the prisoners, Bruce Willis spends most of his limited screen time sitting by himself in a cell, looking tired, and making a few smart-ass remarks.

2.5 out of 5 stars. Ideological Content Analysis indicates that Corrective Measures is:

[WARNING: SPOILERS]

Media-critical, with a news broadcast uncritically repeating a false story from prison officials.

Anti-capitalistic. A corporation is alleged to have engineered the problem of super-criminals to justify the establishment of private-sector specialized prisons to house them.

Pedophobic. “What’s worse than ants in your pants? Your uncle!”

Christ-ambivalent. It is not entirely clear whether ultraviolent Christian convict Payback (Dan Payne) is supposed to be a likable character. He comes across as a fanatic as he smears a cross on his face with blood or spouts lines like, “I am the alpha and the omega” and “Resist the devil and he will flee from you”, but he emerges victorious in the end, his faith clearly an asset of some sort. His American flag tattoo, as well, seems to indicate that he is somehow a representative American, and may be designed to inspire patriotic viewers’ identification with him. Militating against the attribution of Christian sympathies to Corrective Measures, however, is the observation of prisoner Gordon Tweedy (Tom Cavanagh) that, “if there’s a higher power,” the Lobe is “never getting out.” If Tweedy is right, then Lobe’s eventual escape suggests that there is, in fact, no “higher power”.

Misandrist and anti-white. Officer Morales (Kat Ruston), the toughest of the guards, is repeatedly depicted pummeling white men – even beating Tweedy to death. This is presumably justified, however, by Tweedy’s previous reference to a black guard as a “big gorilla”. Representing the capable but long-suffering and exhausted black woman is the prison’s administrative assistant Felicia Johnson (Celia Aloma), who struggles to break into the (implicitly white) “boys’ club” of prison administration. Devlin (Michael Rooker), San Tiburon’s warden, is a southerner who prefers the title “Overseer”, which is clearly meant to evoke the South’s legacy of slavery, giving an implied racial tinge to Devlin’s decision to appoint one of the white guards as his successor and snub the obviously more qualified Felicia.  

Anti-Semitic! Bruce Willis’s character, Julius “The Lobe” Loeb, is a super-smart financial criminal and mind-controller whose foul deeds include manipulating a woman into massacring her family – perpetuating the hateful canard of Jews as money-grubbing swindlers and diabolical puppet masters. Switching bodies with Devlin at the end of the movie, the Lobe sees to it that Felicia gets the promotion, further endorsing the narrative that Jews in positions of power promote black advancement at the expense of whites. Shame on Tubi for furnishing a platform for such unabashed, pitchfork-brandishing Jew-hatred – may they boil eternally in a cauldron of the Hitlerian shit they host!

Rainer Chlodwig von K.

Rainer is the author of Drugs, Jungles, and Jingoism.