‘Last Rites’ and ‘Dogboys’ Spend Time in the Cooler

HBO is renowned as the place film stars and directors go to get smaller, less commercial projects made, but tonight, Starz! and the Movie Channel, far less prestigious name brands, are premiering movies with feature directors and, if not A-list, then at least B-list performers.

Coincidentally, both are prison melodramas, and probably not so coincidentally, they’re contrived and hokey, if occasionally diverting, affairs. Still, they hardly offer the gripping, harrowing look at prison life presented by “Oz,” a series shown on--yes--HBO.

Randy Quaid (“Independence Day”) stars in “Last Rites” as Dillon, a hateful Florida death row inmate. “You should have seen the last rites I gave those girls,” he cackles sinisterly to the priest before his execution. Yet he’s spared when a generator blows as the electric chair’s switch is flipped, leaving him with amnesia and a scalp striped like a candy cane.

It turns out Dillon has also become weirdly prescient, and soon he’s solving more crimes than “NYPD Blue’s” Simone and Sipowicz. A psychiatrist (Embeth Davidtz of “Schindler’s List” and “The Gingerbread Man”) is brought in to determine if he has truly changed or is somehow faking it to avoid a second trip to the chair.

Meanwhile, the governor and warden want to rush him back into Ol’ Sparky, since he’s becoming a political hot potato.

Hence, the movie can pretend it’s seriously exploring the issue of capital punishment while just serving up a nonsensical genre exercise cluttered with not merely plot holes but plot chasms.

Australian director Kevin Dowling (“The Sum of Us”) tells his story efficiently, drawing strong performances from the principal cast, though Quaid is more convincing as the vulnerable man seeking help than as the remorseless, hard-bitten killer.

Unfortunately, “Last Rites” ends up as standard-issue stalker stuff with a foreseeable twist, complete with the requisite shot of a young blond in a kitchen with butcher knives prominently displayed. And ultimately, the film apolitically splits the difference on the issues it raises, its apparent solution being . . . electroshock for everyone!

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Electroshock certainly might be worth trying on those responsible for “Dogboys,” a prison thriller a little too undercooked to be overheated. Director Ken Russell (“Altered States,” “Women in Love”) relates the tale of Julian (Dean Cain), a soulful, tough-guy convict assigned by the typically sadistic Captain Brown (Bryan Brown of “F/X”) to be a “dogboy”--a human guinea pig used to train attack dogs to hunt down potential escapees.

Yes, this is the manly world of prison-movie prisons, a world of (sigh) arbitrary strip searches and relentless macho one-upmanship, and if you don’t sense a “Most Dangerous Game” connection in there somewhere, you’re not paying attention.

People cross Julian at their own peril, apparently forgetting this is the former Superman they’re dealing with. “You’re gonna be my sweet thing, or you’re gonna end up dead,” a con tells Julian less than five minutes into the movie; he’s written out by minute six.

Dialogue is deliriously silly, with the term “dogboy” used so frequently you’d think they’re trying to make it a national catch-phrase.

* “Last Rites” airs Saturday at 8 p.m. on Starz!. The network has rated it TV-MA (may not be suitable for children under the age of 17).

* “Dogboys” airs at 9 tonight and again at 9 p.m. Wednesday on the Movie Channel. The network has rated it TV-14-DLSV (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14, with advisories for coarse dialogue, suggestive language, sex and violence).