This 2017 TV crime drama stars Penelope Ann Miller, Joe Anderson, Myk Watford and Daniel Roebuck based on a true story. Miller (Kindergarten Cop) plays the title role of Mrs. Mitchell, a nice, yet naive, prison shop teacher who gets herself in a fix when she's manipulated by 2 inmates, David Sweat (Anderson) and Richard Matt (Watford) who use her to escape. Roebuck (The Fugitive) plays Joyce's husband, Lyle. This is a pretty good film with a decent cast, especially Miller who does a great job. I recommend this.
New York Prison Break the Seduction of Joyce Mitchell (2017 TV Movie)
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Seduction of Joyce Mitchell
debbiedoo-9413024 April 2017
While it seems this movie stuck very closely to reality, it was shocking how unintentionally funny it was. The humor made it watchable. I'm not sure I would recommend it as a serious learning tool. But it was definitely unforgettable, if for only the wrong reasons. The lead actress came across as the most unbelievable. The supporting cast did a fabulous job with the script they were given.
Serviceable Movie...
clacura27 September 2017
It is what it is, a serviceable movie. In a motel and HBO plays the same movies all over. How many times can they play TED 2 or Michael Clayton? A Bourne flick is always on and then there is this movie.
The real life drama of this escape was riveting. Like most prison breaks all the effort goes in how to get out without much reflection on what's next--these two criminals were no exception.
If it weren't for these types of movies, how would C and B actors pay the bills? This venture gives a C actor the opportunity to star in a movie rather than get 10 mins of screen time on a bigger budget enterprise.
This is definitely is a made for TV movie and smartly didn't try to be anything else. I wish they put more effort in the escape and played the drama up--it really would have been more entertaining. If this was not a true story it would have been cheesy but life can offer a slice of cheese. This woman did get seduced in a boring marriage watching her passionless life go by. Very real life reality for many.
If you haven't seen the real life footage on YouTube of this crime break watch it--it is more entertaining than this movie but after you watch this interest is peaked. There is an hour long documentary that gets into the core details.
The real life drama of this escape was riveting. Like most prison breaks all the effort goes in how to get out without much reflection on what's next--these two criminals were no exception.
If it weren't for these types of movies, how would C and B actors pay the bills? This venture gives a C actor the opportunity to star in a movie rather than get 10 mins of screen time on a bigger budget enterprise.
This is definitely is a made for TV movie and smartly didn't try to be anything else. I wish they put more effort in the escape and played the drama up--it really would have been more entertaining. If this was not a true story it would have been cheesy but life can offer a slice of cheese. This woman did get seduced in a boring marriage watching her passionless life go by. Very real life reality for many.
If you haven't seen the real life footage on YouTube of this crime break watch it--it is more entertaining than this movie but after you watch this interest is peaked. There is an hour long documentary that gets into the core details.
Most Pathetic Excuse of a Woman
sandoval_kat24 April 2017
I've watched some pretty awful movies on Lifetime, and although this was based on a true story, I could not even watch the entire movie. I know Miss Miller studied Joyce in order to portray her to the best of her ability and for accuracy, but Joyce is THE most pathetic woman I've ever seen and her weakness was so annoying that I skipped out on the last 40 minutes. We all know the ending, so no need wasting valuable time on such drivel.
Low rating because not big stars
kjr0326 February 2022
It is a good movie. Acting was very good. The low rating reflects reviewer's prejudice over there not being big name stars in it, IMHO. The humor was great, regardless of some snooty reviewers thinking it weakened the story.
Yep. A Lifetime movie. Not to be confused with Hallmark.
thejdrage6 February 2022
I am not sure how I ran across this, but decided to watch it. Could not help be compare it with Ben Stiller's brilliant Escape at Dannemora limited series. It didn't quite meet the criteria. Guess it's like saying a high school production of Hamlet didn't compare to a West End production.
BUT! I did learn a few more things.
All in all, people should be aware when they are being 'courted' by cons. Cons in jail or in school or at your job. Cons are cons. They are everywhere and they are men and women.
Was she naive: No doubt. We all are at one - or 10 - times in our lives.
I did work in a federal prison for a brief time and some of the prisoners were very charming. And they could certainly spin a tale. The trick was to smile and let it go. Too bad she couldn't.
This is an interesting story and if I could only watch one, I'd watch the Ben Stiller version, but this one was okay.
BUT! I did learn a few more things.
All in all, people should be aware when they are being 'courted' by cons. Cons in jail or in school or at your job. Cons are cons. They are everywhere and they are men and women.
Was she naive: No doubt. We all are at one - or 10 - times in our lives.
I did work in a federal prison for a brief time and some of the prisoners were very charming. And they could certainly spin a tale. The trick was to smile and let it go. Too bad she couldn't.
This is an interesting story and if I could only watch one, I'd watch the Ben Stiller version, but this one was okay.
Seduction and betrayal
btreakle20 February 2022
Bad Cast, Bad Story Bad Movie
johnginesi-7227815 May 2020
Non sensical movie
biswashok18 August 2021
Better than expected!
jaynes-8377724 April 2017
This movie actually surprised me, after the last few lifetime biopics I saw I didn't have very high hopes for it. But the acting in this was great and they pretty much covered all the events that happened from beginning to end. If you like lifetime movies I would definitely check this out!
How Are Things in Dannemora?
lavatch25 March 2024
Warning: Spoilers
It is sad to contemplate the life of Joyce "Tillie" Mitchell, an employee in a New York prison in Dannemora, who assisted in the escape of two convicted murderers.
First, it was nearly inconceivable how Tillie would become smitten with not one, but two murderers. Her fantasy was to escape with the pair and enjoy paradise in Mexico as a ménage-à-trois!
Second, the slack and incompetent prison authorities should have recognized that Tillie was spending inordinate amounts of time with Matt and Sweat in apparently private spaces in the prison. At one time, she was questioned about her suspicious conduct. She should have been fired on the spot.
Third, after getting cold feet and failing to show up with the escape vehicle, Tillie had the audacity to lie the authorities. She contradicted herself in claiming that she was coerced into aiding the escapees when they threatened to kill her husband while at the same time saying they would kill him anyway after the escape.
At the time of this writing, Tillie has now been released from prison. She now has the time to reflect on assisting two desperate psychopaths who were out the loose for a three-week period, endangering the lives of honest citizens.
Disgraceful!
First, it was nearly inconceivable how Tillie would become smitten with not one, but two murderers. Her fantasy was to escape with the pair and enjoy paradise in Mexico as a ménage-à-trois!
Second, the slack and incompetent prison authorities should have recognized that Tillie was spending inordinate amounts of time with Matt and Sweat in apparently private spaces in the prison. At one time, she was questioned about her suspicious conduct. She should have been fired on the spot.
Third, after getting cold feet and failing to show up with the escape vehicle, Tillie had the audacity to lie the authorities. She contradicted herself in claiming that she was coerced into aiding the escapees when they threatened to kill her husband while at the same time saying they would kill him anyway after the escape.
At the time of this writing, Tillie has now been released from prison. She now has the time to reflect on assisting two desperate psychopaths who were out the loose for a three-week period, endangering the lives of honest citizens.
Disgraceful!
Lifetime at its best
mgconlan-124 April 2017
Warning: Spoilers
On April 23 Lifetime showed a movie they'd been heavily hyping for weeks: "New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell," based on a real-life New York prison escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in June 2015. The escape, in which two convicts with the unfortunate names David Sweat (Joe Anderson) and Richard Matt (Myk Watford) broke out and had help doing so from two prison employees, Joyce Mitchell (Penelope Ann Miller) and Gene Palmer — and were at large for three weeks before Matt was shot down while threatening police with a shotgun and Sweat was taken alive two days later — made national news. Indeed, I can remember thinking when the story broke, "Someday this will be made into a Lifetime movie" — and now here it is. It's also quite well done, written and directed by Stephen Tolkin — who's done reality-based Lifetime movies before, including "The Craigslist Killer" and "Cleveland Abduction," and also has some feature-film credits — and vividly acted by the three principals as well as by Daniel Roebuck as Joyce's husband Lyle, a hapless guy with a penchant for boring her with conversational rambles. He's still turned on by her but she couldn't be less interested in him.
Despite its rather clinical title, "New York Prison Break" works on just about every level, from the intrinsic interest of the story to the highly atmospheric direction Tolkin gives it, to the Hitchcockian game he plays throughout where he shows so much detail of how Sweat and Matt are literally digging their way out of the prison we end up rooting for them to succeed even though Tolkin tried to forestall that sort of moral reversal by beginning his film with a graphic depiction of the crime Sweat and Matt committed. Most prison-escape movies hedge their bets by making the prisoners sympathetic and the jailers the bad guys — either they're Nazis running a concentration camp or the authorities on Devil's Island or some such place lording it over unjustly convicted victims — but in this one the bad guys are bad guys, and yet through Tolkin's writing and direction and the appropriately edgy acting of Anderson and Watford they come off as just the sort of irresistible studs that might turn on a woman like Joyce Mitchell full of unfulfilled longings and desires. Penelope Ann Miller's performance as Joyce is also excellent, particularly when she switches from bored housewife and career woman to acting like a giddy teenager in the first throes of romantic passion when she gets notes from Sweat and contemplates a future with him on the outside — a dream of hers he, of course, has no intention of fulfilling!
"New York Prison Break" is obviously an exploitation film aimed at taking advantage of the publicity surrounding the real event, and yet it's also a finely honed piece of drama — not a great film by any means, but a solidly appealing one that manages to offer quality entertainment and is particularly good at dramatizing the frustration that leads Joyce Mitchell to her fatal infatuation with Sweat and Matt. Where Tolkin scores best is in the clashes between the three main characters — Mitchell the mature woman (it's established that she's already a grandmother) who's acting like a giddy teenager; Matt the confident seducer who's able to get what he wants with his gifts as an artist (he paints quite a few pictures, including ones of Mitchell and other prison staffers which he trades for favors) and a lover; and Sweat the callous but hunky brute who's willing to exploit not only Joyce but Matt as well.In one of the film's most chilling scene, after the two have broken out together, Sweat dumps Matt and tells him that now that his plans have changed and they're fleeing to Canada instead of Mexico, he won't need Matt because the only reason he included Matt was that Matt spoke Spanish and he doesn't have to have a Spanish-speaker on board if he's going to Canada instead. "New York Prison Break" is the sort of quirky delight that keeps us unlikely Lifetime buffs watching this often exploitative (particularly in their "reality" series, less so in their movies) but also often oddly compelling network.
Despite its rather clinical title, "New York Prison Break" works on just about every level, from the intrinsic interest of the story to the highly atmospheric direction Tolkin gives it, to the Hitchcockian game he plays throughout where he shows so much detail of how Sweat and Matt are literally digging their way out of the prison we end up rooting for them to succeed even though Tolkin tried to forestall that sort of moral reversal by beginning his film with a graphic depiction of the crime Sweat and Matt committed. Most prison-escape movies hedge their bets by making the prisoners sympathetic and the jailers the bad guys — either they're Nazis running a concentration camp or the authorities on Devil's Island or some such place lording it over unjustly convicted victims — but in this one the bad guys are bad guys, and yet through Tolkin's writing and direction and the appropriately edgy acting of Anderson and Watford they come off as just the sort of irresistible studs that might turn on a woman like Joyce Mitchell full of unfulfilled longings and desires. Penelope Ann Miller's performance as Joyce is also excellent, particularly when she switches from bored housewife and career woman to acting like a giddy teenager in the first throes of romantic passion when she gets notes from Sweat and contemplates a future with him on the outside — a dream of hers he, of course, has no intention of fulfilling!
"New York Prison Break" is obviously an exploitation film aimed at taking advantage of the publicity surrounding the real event, and yet it's also a finely honed piece of drama — not a great film by any means, but a solidly appealing one that manages to offer quality entertainment and is particularly good at dramatizing the frustration that leads Joyce Mitchell to her fatal infatuation with Sweat and Matt. Where Tolkin scores best is in the clashes between the three main characters — Mitchell the mature woman (it's established that she's already a grandmother) who's acting like a giddy teenager; Matt the confident seducer who's able to get what he wants with his gifts as an artist (he paints quite a few pictures, including ones of Mitchell and other prison staffers which he trades for favors) and a lover; and Sweat the callous but hunky brute who's willing to exploit not only Joyce but Matt as well.In one of the film's most chilling scene, after the two have broken out together, Sweat dumps Matt and tells him that now that his plans have changed and they're fleeing to Canada instead of Mexico, he won't need Matt because the only reason he included Matt was that Matt spoke Spanish and he doesn't have to have a Spanish-speaker on board if he's going to Canada instead. "New York Prison Break" is the sort of quirky delight that keeps us unlikely Lifetime buffs watching this often exploitative (particularly in their "reality" series, less so in their movies) but also often oddly compelling network.
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