Starred Up (16) ****
Directed by David MacKenzie, this gritty prison thriller focuses on the character of Eric Love (Jack O’Connnell) a nineteen-year-old man deemed so dangerous and unpredictable that’s he’s ‘starred up’ - prison parlance for being sent to an adult jail and labelled a high risk.
There, his volatile personality and knack for quickly ‘kicking off’ rapidly makes him enemies both within the prison system and on the criminal-filled wing that’s to be his new home.
Like his estranged father Neville (Ben Mandelson) who’s residing in the same jail, Eric seems destined to be a lifer, constantly in trouble with the law and causing disruption within the prison system.
Rupert Friend shines too as an unconventional therapist who is desperate to make the prisoners’ lives better - but refreshingly avoids going down the ‘hugging and learning’ route.
But where Starred Up really succeeds is in MacKenzie’s portrayal of the politics, power struggles and pecking orders that exist within the prison system.
It’s not easy viewing, but this deeply immersive drama builds to a tense finale and never descends into the type of cliché that pops up so often in films like this.
Labor Day (12A) **
Director Jason Reitman has had a good run in recent years with the wonderful indie drama Juno, the award-winning Up in the Air,
and the dark comedy Young Adult.
Labor Day, by contrast, falls apart pretty early on, courtesy of an unusual but ultimately far-fetched story and wobbly lead performances.
It sets out to be a melodramatic romance along the lines of, say, The Bridges of Madison County. But the intensity needed to make a story like this compelling simply isn’t there.
Set in rural America in the mid eighties, the film centres on Adele (Kate Winslet), a single mother left depressed and vulnerable since her ex-husband left her for another woman.
It’s while on a shopping trip with her adolescent son that an injured man approaches the boy asking for help and then forces the mother and son to take him to their home.
They later discover that he’s Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin), a convict who has just escaped from a prison in the area and needs somewhere to lie low as police search for him.
Even factoring in the unlikely scenarios that unfold, Labor Day is a labour to sit through, solely lacking the sense of wit that Reitman’s other films have brought us.
The normally solid Winslet struggles with a character who’s too one-note to make you really invest in her, while Brolin’s sexy macho convict routine eventually wears thin.
