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Dog Pound
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| Year: |
2010
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Director: |
Kim Chapiron
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| Stars: |
Adam Butcher, Shane Kippel, Mateo Morales, Slim Twig, Taylor Poulin, Dewshane Williams, Lawrence Bayne, Trent McMullen, Jeff McEnery, Bryan Murphy, Michael Morang, Clayton Joseph, Alexander Conti, William Christopher Ellis, Michael States Jr
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| Genre: |
Drama |
| Rating: |
  5 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Three teenagers from various parts of the country have been sent to a juvenile detention centre for crimes including drug running, car theft, and violence and now they are standing in the office of the head guard receiving their induction into the institution. They are searched, told what they can and cannot do, and then Goodyear (Lawrence Bayne), one of the toughest officers, shows up late to take them to their dormitory. These boys are not interested in the politics of the staff, they simply want to find out their own place in the hierarchy inside...
There was one film that nobody could get away from when discussing Dog Pound, a British-French-Canadian co-production about prison life for young offenders: that's right, it was Scum, Alan Clarke's hardhitting cult classic that had been adapted from his own, previously banned, television drama. Some say that the film version of that play was lesser than the original incarnation, so what would they think of this unofficial remake, with the action transplanted to a facility in Montana? Most likely they would wonder what the point was when there were already two perfectly decent versions of this story in existence.
But that wasn't the way to get ahead in the movie landscape of the new millennium, as apparently the best method of doing that was to play the update card, which is what director Kim Chapiron did here. His previous film had been the enjoyably offbeat Sheitan, a kooky French horror, but here he toned down the idiosyncrasies to offer a fairly straightforward prison story, or more accurately collection of stories, as we follow a group of the inmates, not only the three we were introduced to initially, as they get deeper into trouble. The moral being that if you wanted to create a career criminal, or more likely a career prisoner, these places were the ideal way to start, not a particularly helpful stance to take.
If you know Scum, then you'll be very much ahead of the characters here, as there were few variations on Clarke's originals. If you don't, then it's possible you would be impressed by the grit and lack of sentiment with which this is delivered, yet there was the feeling that it was a little too shapeless to be truly gripping, and the characters themselves tending towards the same template. So we have the big man who bullies all around him with the help of his hangers-on, and naturally is taken down to point out that those who live by the sword die by the sword, and every time there's an indiscretion the guards will ask who was repsonsible and get no reply. Every time. Our three main inmates become friends, and there is a sense of camaraderie among many of them that leads to the predictable riot that climaxes the film, although Chapiron nevertheless opts for the open ending. Dog Pound was professionally made, but unilluminating for the most part, and always destined to be in the shadow of its inspiration.
[The extras on Optimum's DVD are profiles of the cast, a featurette on the press tour, and the trailer.]
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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