Genre Guesstimation – Starred Up (2013)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s Genre has been chosen by Jay of Life Vs. Film  We will be reviewing our favorite Prison Films.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Mar by sending them to sendjay2prison@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Jay!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Prison Films…

“I’m just saying. Said this therapy goes well and it changes my life and I rehabilitate. And then you lay it on for the next geezer and it works for him, and the next. And everything’s sweet yeah? Crime rates starts to come down, police got less people to nick, courts got less people to convict. Pretty soon you’re out of a job.” – Eric

Number of Times Seen – 1 (6 Mar 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A violent youth prisoner is removed from the juvenile prison system and moved up to the adult population where they can handle his violent outbursts more easily.

My Take on it – I decided that in order to make my guest choices of the Genre for the Genre Grandeur series more personal (and expand my own personal horizons of these genres), I will take a recommendation from my guest for a film to watch for this Genre Guesstimation series.

This film was Jay’s choice for me to watch.

Once again, a film was chosen for me that I had never heard about before and I was eagerly pleased to check this one out.

This is quite a brutal look at prison life (yes, it’s not a fairy tail), but that all adds to the realistic feeling of it all.

The characters and their situations seem real and even though it doesn’t have a documentary feel to it, it mostly works to keep us interested throughput.

They do a nice job of adding in a human message about family that also rings true in these kind of situations that works even amongst the numerous other side plot lines of the story.

The story itself flows quite well yet something constantly feels as if its missing the whole way through in the way that the whole situation is portrayed.

Bottom Line – Brutal look at the prison system in Britain.  Liked the way that they added in a message about family among the numerous plotlines.  The acting is done quite well and the characters feel quite realistic.  The story flows quite well, but something still feels lacking in this portrayal of the prison system.  Recommended

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Based on screenwriter Jonathan Asser’s experiences working as a voluntary therapist at HM Prison Wandsworth. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not quite.  This film is extremely brutal and has a strong subtext story about family, but isn’t the kind of film that I would want to watch again and include among my favorites.

Rating – Globe Worthy

_______________________________________

Check out my *updated* movie stats here

To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link

To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)

Here is a link to my movie index A-Z