“Alcatraz” (* out of four) was a dreadful prison melodrama that holds the audience hostage with cheap production values and terrible acting; on the infamous Alcatraz Island, a group of prisoners (Gareth Lawrence, Mark Homer, Lee Bane, and others) attempt to escape all while ruminating the difficulties and emotional pain of being incarcerated and without freedom. This garish time-waster plays like a low-budget rip-off of “The Shawshank Redemption” but (to put it mildly) these guys don’t have the expansive thespianism of Tim Robbins or Morgan Freeman.