Like father like son. A captivating yet at times hardly believable drama which evolves around emotional development of a troubled young lad. We follow him as he gets prematurely transferred from juvenile prison to what seems like an open prison for adults, where he bullies jailers and inmates even though he's the youngest. It is captivating because of the dynamics and pace of the film, good casting, especially O'Connell's perfect portrayal of an angry young man, who accidentally turns on a downward spiral of events, as well as for realistic insight into British prison. It is also hardly believable - a funny thing is that this realism praised in reviews looks rather suspicious at a first glance, especially to eastern Europeans, I suppose. How much freedom do convicts in British prisons have and how scarcely jailers use force is alerting. This striking disproportion may be good for the viewers since it makes the film more cool and drastic, but it doesn't look as though it was good for those doing time.
Review of Starred Up
