In Powertool, Jeff Stryker is is thrown into the County Jail for thirty days for an unspecified offence. Behind bars, he finds that his meaty tool is handy for forming alliances with horny hungry-bottom guards, and scoring joints and cartons of cigarettes. Elsewhere, other inmates pass the time with endless manramming.

Powertool has won wide acclaim and porn classic status, with Catalina releasing a 10th Anniverary special edition DVD and the title regularly appearing on all-time best lists but I found it to be a disjointed film that doesn't realise its potential. Apart from throwing a few bars and bunks around the set Powertool doesn't exploit the pressurised sexiness of the prison millieu and while Stryker amuses with his tongue-in-cheek charisma and line delivery, his sex actions are disappointing and the film's sex highlights occur only when he isn't around.

Stryker looks great in the opening scene, where he stares down the judge dressed in jeans and a skin tight sleeveless black top. But when he first strips - for inspection before being issued with his prison denims - it's a let down. Stryker's never been my favorite porn star, I find him short and cartoonish but that isn't the problem here. When Stryker bends over and spreads his ass cheeks apart while holding onto the cell rails, Travis captures the shot from above, so that we don't really get too see the Styker-hole at all. The focus is, instead, on Tony Bravo's prison guard. There are several closeups of Bravo's leering eyes and the lighting and framing of this brief scene emphasises Bravo, not Stryker. Stryker growls that Bravo "really likes lookin' at that asshole" and Bravo obviously does but we feel left out, as we aren't able to look at it at all. Stryker strips down in seconds, and there isn't a single close up. All we see is the famous Stryker body and cock - whch we already know off by heart anyway - in uninspiring mid shot. Mismatched sight lines and flashes of Stryker standing against a differently lit background make it clear that this scene has been patched together and the resultant lack of any organic feeling is awful.

The film's sensational highlight is the next scene, where 6'1" blonde beauty John Davenport makes full use of his bottom-bunk bitch, Michael Gere. Davenport's character has just received a letter from his girlfriend that tells him she's leaving him for someone else. Clad in tube socks and white jockeys, Davenport lies back on his top bunk, puts one hand behind his head and uses his free hand to rub his cock, pensively. When Gere asks what's happened, Davenport loses his temper, jumps down and orders Gere to suck his cock. Davenport's dick puts Stryker's in the shade. It's longer, thicker, and vein-engorged. Shots of Davenport stuffing it into Gere's mouth are most impressive, as are Davenport's imperious orders, where he calls Gere a "jailhouse fairy", a fag and orders him around continually. After many great minutes of this, Gere rims Davenport before getting fucked mercilessly, apparent pain visible on his face. In a cell across the corridor, Stryker watches the action and jerks off, but again, he does so impassively and every time the film cuts to Stryker, I was anxious to return to the better filmed, hotter action. This scene makes the film worthwhile, and comes replete with a great moment where a patrolling guard sends Davenport and Gere scurrying temporarily to their separate bunks and looking innocent like a pair of boarding school boys.

A couple of perfunctory scenes follow, the highlights being Stryker's bargaining of his cock in return for cartons of cigarettes, and a three-way shower scene featuring the cheeky Tony Marino.

After his release, Stryker heads for his once-happy home but finds his boyfriend, the tanned and stacked Danny Russo, has hoooked up with Brian Estevez, the little short-stealing trouble maker from Inch By Inch, obviously still up to his old ways. Stryker observes them secretly before chucking some stuff into a bag and leaving, cruising Mike Henson on the street for a split-second before Powertool ends.

This seems like a rather lazy star turn from Stryker who seems to do nothing more than the robotic basics. He's an amusing performer but by this stage in his career had become well aware that all he had to do was appear. Director Travis is clearly of the same opinion, as he doesn't really bother to show us much beyond guys bent over on the receving end of Stryker's (usually semi-tumescent) power tool.

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