Features > Movie Reviews > Cell 211…

You want to journey in without mishap. Show up keen and early. Make a good impression with your boss. Get on well with new colleagues. There’s always a lot crowding your mind.

Juan Oliver’s (Alberto Ammann) first day is, all things considered, not going well. And he’s just started as a guard at a maximum security prison in northern Spain. In fact, his actual first day isn’t even until tomorrow – this is just him showing willing and turning up, plain-clothed, for a tour of the facility to get his bearings.

But as said tour reaches an empty section of the prison, the crumbling, dilapidated building greets him with a falling chunk of masonry to the head. He’s ok, a bit dazed, and his guard guides lay him on the bed in nearby cell 211 while they fetch the first aid kit.

And then all hell breaks loose. The prisoners riot. The guards flee. Convicts from the really dangerous wing take the prison. When Juan comes to, he’s in occupied territory, deep behind enemy lines.

Hauled in front of Malamadre (Luis Tosar), the riot ringleader, Juan’s only hope of survival lies in the riskiest play of all: pretending he’s an inmate too…

It’s an arresting premise. A sort of reverse Prison Break told from the point of view of a man literally and metaphorically on the other, wrong, side of the fence. But where the TV series served up zesty thrills, Cell 211 is dark. Brutal. Real (ish).

There are echoes of A Prophet in the film’s almost documentary air, and director Daniel Monzón's singular achievement is in sustaining this throughout, trapping us inside a stark, menacing environment, right alongside the wide-eyed Juan.

Alberto Ammann, with more than a shade of Gyllenhaal about him, is excellent as Oliver: a decent, family man with generous, forward-thinking ideals, who’s suddenly living the life of those he would guard, immersed in a world of feral hierarchy.

This is Malamadre's world, and Tosar is fiercely good as the primal but calculating Alpha male, just about in charge of the raging takeover, and – crucially – achieving a razor-edge rapport with Ammann. Because Cell 211 hinges on the relationship between Oliver and Malamadre; two men poles apart in most judgement criteria you can think of, but forced together, and engaged in the ultimate battle of wits.

Like submarine movies, a prison film has a built-in sense of threat and claustrophobia that ratchets up the tension and squeezes you until the adrenaline’s pouring out of your ears.

What elevates Cell 211 above standard prison fare is the story jammed in the centre of this cold, concrete pit. They say that it’s dangerous to care, to even feel, when you’re ‘inside’. This is going to be true in so many ways for Oliver and Malamadre alike.

Hollywood has already caught the scent of fresh blood, and a US remake is in the works for 2013. We can only hope they get it right. In the meantime, and even if subtitles aren’t always your thing, do not let Monzón’s expert Spanish thriller pass you by.