Starred Up

Jack O'Connell and Ben Mendelsohn in Starred Up

David Mackenzie's Starred Up is a bracing British prison movie from 2013. Jack O'Connell stars as a teenaged violent offender who has proved so incorrigible that he has been moved to an adult facility, i.e. "starred up". He meets up with his long lost Dad in stir and, happily for the audience, the father is played by the always interesting Ben Mendelsohn. A caring therapist tries to help our lad get better by cajoling him into joining a group session where he can vent, but our lad has too much fury in him and is soon running afoul of the powers that be inside the prison.

Mackenzie's visual strategy is similar to the one he employed in Hell or High Water. Most dialogue is played in front of a stationary camera, with judicious use of close-ups. When one of the main characters roams the jail's corridors looking for trouble, the camera dollies behind, as if hurtling with the characters towards their doom. Visually, the bleakness of prison life is conveyed. We and the characters are trapped behind doors, screens, bars, and the like with very little color in the cinematographic palette of the film.

What saves the film from a one dimensional tone is the richness of the characterizations. All of the prisoners in the therapy groups emerge as three dimensional men, each carrying anger and sadness at their lot. Starred Up doesn't reinvent the wheel of the prison picture, but it is compelling entertainment and shows why Mackenzie soon drew the attention of Hollywood.