Like the boxing movie, you might think the prison drama should have grown stale by now, and yet it continues to surprise. Inside, the feature debut of Cannes-winning writer/director Charles Williams, might have the least original title for a prison movie imaginable, but it uses its familiar setting in distinctive ways that almost reinvent the sub-genre.
Where most prison movies are focussed on their protagonists' desire for freedom, two of the three men at the centre of Inside believe they're in exactly the right place while a third is convinced he belongs outside. Over the course of its running time, Williams' film will constantly make us reassess which of these men belongs in prison and who among them might be able to make it on the outside.
Turning 18, Mel (Vincent Miller) is transferred from a juvenile detention centre to an adult prison. There he finds himself rooming with one of Australia's most infamous criminals, child killer Mark (Cosmo Jarvis). The warden tries to break the news gently to Mel, but the young man isn't all that bothered by the idea of sharing a cell with a child killer, as he's one himself. Their crimes are significantly different though: Mel killed a fellow juvie when he was 13 in an act of self defence gone wrong while a 13-year-old Mark raped and murdered a nine-year-old girl.
Before learning the specific details of his cellmate's crime, Mel is taken under Mark's wing. A born-again Christian, Mark delivers sermons in the prison chapel, where fellow inmates gather, some taking his preaching seriously while others see his ramblings as entertainment. But when Mel learns the true horror of Mark's past he decides to become his assassin. Unable to forgive himself, Mel has decided that he doesn't deserve to be released, and so this seems the perfect way to ensure he remains in prison for the rest of his days.
When Warren (Guy Pearce) gets wind of Mel's plan he sees it as an opportunity to claim the $5,000 bounty on Mark's head for himself and pay off the debt he owes to a prison gang. Fashioning a makeshift shiv, Warren schools Mel on how best to kill Mark while promising to split the reward with him.
Inside presents us with three central characters who constantly challenge our assumptions and question our allegiances. At first we think Mel is being hard on himself for believing he doesn't belong in civilised society, but as we witness his violent outbursts we begin to wonder if he might be right. Despite his horrific crime, Mark seems genuinely rehabilitated, but given the nature of his offence we simply can't find any sympathy for him. Of the three men, Warren is the one who thinks he deserves to be released, but in his manipulation of Mel we can see that prison has taken his soul. Having been jailed for a drug-induced hit and run as a younger man, Warren has now advanced to orchestrating murder, a rather damning indictment of the incarceration system.
Where prison movies tend to focus on the horrors inside their walls, Williams' debut makes it all too clear that these men have faced far worse on the outside. All three of its protagonists are victims of cycles of generational abuse. None of these three men ever stood a chance. Violence within the prison walls is mostly represented as a lingering threat rather than explicitly depicted (at least until the shocking climax), but the things we hear about these men's experiences on the outside send shivers down our spines. The film has its share of upsetting moments, but none compare to the documenting of the disastrous day release experience of Warren, who discovers his now adult son (a gut-wrenching cameo by Toby Wallace) has become a hardened, cruel criminal himself.
All three leads deliver riveting performances. Newcomer Miller convinces as a young man whose innocent face masks a life of horror. Jarvis is uniquely disturbing as Mark, playing the ghoul like a human trying to keep a monster from breaking out of his flesh he's like Jekyll stuck midway through a transformation into Hyde, leaving us to guess which side is his true nature. But it's Pearce who is the real star here, another quietly brilliant turn from one of our most under-appreciated actors. The part requires Pearce to play two roles, that of the real Warren and the rehabilitated ace he presents to the world. Watching Pearce play Warren as he realises he was never destined to return to a world that has treated him so cruelly is as rewarding as it is devastating.
Directed by: Charles Williams
Starring: Vincent Miller, Guy Pearce, Cosmo Jarvis, Toby Wallace
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