film
February 14, 2026
Animol review
Institutional menace and an idealistic take on redemption sit side-by-side in Top Boy actor Ashley Walters’ empathic and occasionally over-earnest film
TL;DR
- The film is set in a lawless and brutal young offender institution.
- New inmates must abandon innocence and submit to gang authority to survive.
- Drugs arrive by drone, and guards are indifferent to violence.
- Troy, a new arrival, forms a bond with Krystian.
- They are menaced by Dion and wary of Mason.
- Stephen Graham plays Claypole, the unit's youth worker.
- The film explores currency within the prison: phones, drugs, and respect.
- Secrets are a fourth commodity, used for blackmail and as a learning process.
- The film has empathy and strong performances but is considered flawed.
- It challenges the genre's hetero machismo with a belief in redeemability.
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