(***1/2)

Damn. He’s near parole then fate gives him a new roommate. What could go wrong? 

Prison movies come and go. Few are as well written and intriguing as this ode to those incarcerated and hoping for freedom. In a striking feature film debut, British director Cal McMau doesn’t bring much innovation to the genre. He sticks to the basics, strong characters, smart character development, peaked emotions. Adds a twisting storyline and plenty of danger lurking around every cell. Enough to keep audiences wondering whose powerplay will endure. Who’ll be the last man standing or lying on cold cement.

Taylor (David Jonsson, Rye Lane) has masterfully survived 10 years in a seedy British prison by melting into the woodwork. Friendly to all, never puts up a fuss. His congeniality and passivity have served him well. Especially with the prison powerbrokers. As luck would have it, because of overcrowding, he’s up for parole sooner than he thought. Trying to arrange who will be there for him on the outside becomes a test for him and the social worker. And he’s got to stay clean, too. No more drugs. 

Any hopes of a quick release diminish the day Dee (Tom Blyth, Benediction) is assigned to his room. From the first second, he’s demanding and setting up his contraband business. Daring the old prisoner hierarchy to f—k with him and claiming his turf. He’s oblivious to prisoner decorum. Selling and trading stuff almost in full view. Never mind that if anything goes down, Taylor could lose his chance at freedom. 

The fact that the two convicts are black and white harks back to older, similar movie pairings:  The 1958 crime/drama The Defiant Ones, with Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis. The Shawshank Redemption in 1994, staring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins. While HBOs Oz in 1997 made race a group experience with stars like Ernie Hudson, Chris Meloni and Harrold Perrineau. McMau isn’t afraid to step into those shoes, and he does so with a screenplay that is tight and on a mission. Keep audiences guessing what will happen to the protagonist as he gets sucked into a prison war he didn’t sign up for. 

The footage features fights, stabbing, nudity, arguments and quests for fiefdoms. The tension mounts almost from day one and doesn’t stop until the last double cross has been made. This jailbird drama feels personal, claustrophobic and is full of mind games.

Filming in part at the former Shepton Mallet Prison in Somerset England, which once held the famous Kray Brothers, cements credibility. The settings (production designer Phoebe Platman), from cells to offices to infirmaries, seem as real as they can be. The prison garb is dull looking until Dee shows up (costume designer Lauren Miller). The color or lack of it (art director Collete Creary-Myers) suits the place, with the coldest shades of blue and gray.  

The atmosphere is well captured by cinematographer Lorenzo Levrini, who knows how to shoot an intimate call to a long-lost son or a deadly fight scene. His cockroach-on-a-wall camerawork is edgy. Precision editing, delivered by James A. Demetriou and Ryan Morrison, means the tightly woven scenes never overstay their welcome. The ninety minutes of drama, intimidation and violence feel brief and intense.

McMau knows how to set the main actors against each and ferment their toxic friendship. He enhances the differences in personalities while the two lead actors develop the characters in ways that are far beyond what’s on the page. One day they’re uneasy brothers. The next boss and employee: Dee, “I’m going to need a big f—king knife and you’re going to get it for me!” Then victim and betrayer. It’s a rocky bromance.

Credit Jonsson and Blyth for accentuating all that is similar and different between Taylor and Dee. It’s easy to like Taylor one second and then have no respect for his spinelessness the next. Easy to be attracted to Dee’s alpha arrogance and think he’ll be the last king of the hill. Frame by frame both actors make the two lead characters more and more complex. Their raw performances keep the highly combustible dynamics as volatile as they need to be. The supporting cast shines even more light on what’s at stake.

Hard to imagine Taylor recovering from what he experiences. Hard to imagine him ever tasting freedom, again. That’s the point. It’s a raw, hard prison life. Then you die. Or you rise.   

Photos courtesy of the Toronto International Film Festival 
For more information about the Toronto International Film Festival go to https://tiff.net/. 
Visit Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.