Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law starts off rough but improves as it moves along and has some surprisingly funny sequences

 Jim Jarmusch's 1986 film, Down by Law, at first looks as if it's going to be just a dark and unpleasant study of the lives of a few down and out people on the margins of the law in then-present-day New Orleans, but the film seems to grow and improve over its course and become not a dreary bit of nostalgia for the mud but, incredibly, a unique take on the genre of buddy/prison escape films (one of the characters even comments on the over-exposed genre). The principals are 3 guy - Zack, Jack, and Roberto (Bob), played by Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni, on the heels of his international comedic success and the bringer of light and humor into this potentially nihilistic narrative. The 3 guys end up as prison cellmates and they plot an escape that they, against all odds and all probability but who cares, manage to accomplish. The look of the film, all shot on location in Louisiana, is an uncontested strength, but the developing relationship among the cellmates - as well as a glimpse at the underlife in the city and in the holding cells of the county prison - are what really drives the film. JJ is one of the true filmmakers working outside of the Hollywood system, and a film like this, low-budget and Spartan in design, shows how much can be accomplished outside of clutches of box-office gross and instant success.