R

I liked this movie, but it made me reflect on how crazy and wrong the prison system is, even in a place like Denmark. I know many disgree, but I think that prison should be somewhere you go to become a better person, to find back to who you really are. Not a place to hae your soul tormented and your spirit crushed. This movie manages to show a world where you either do what it takes to survive, or you are destroyed. Some times you do what it takes, but you are unlucky or someone tells a secret to the wrong person, and you are still destroyed. In between all the violent "masculinity" and bullying, there are moments of humanity, like the friendship between Rune and Rashid and the seeming care the men have for a couple of birds. I liked the fact that we don't get to know too much about how Rune ended up in prison. He could be any regular guy, and that is the whole point.

Very nice film that really shows how the life in prison can be. Many of the prisoners are real bad guys, and some of them have actually been to prison in the very same place that the movie is shot before the prison closed in 2006.

Also the main correctional officer Kim, is a real officer that actually used to work in the very same prison, and is now working in Denmarks newest high security prison that opened in October 2006.

The movie shows a very harsh environment, just the way it actually was. When you watch it you get a real feeling of what it would be like to be in prison.

Today the old prison is operating as a museum and many parts of the building has been left untouched since the last inmates were moved to the new prison.

Prison movies are hard to make. Though the good ones seem effortlessly. And while you can file most of them as dramas (like this one), they almost feel like a sub-genre. Pacing is always key, which this movie proves can handle very well. It's not fancy, but what prison actually is, it's more down and dirty.

The relationships explored make sense in this. And while we may not get all the answers from this movie, the characters are mysterious enough, but also engaging enough for us to care. And that's quite a feat for a movie about criminals and their just (?) punishment. Arguing if prison is the best solution for some or if it works as a whole is a completely different matter.

Rune Pedersen is a new inmate in a tough Danish prison serving a two-year sentence. He's threatened by the brutal inmates and the harsh guards. He becomes the lowest member of the white gang. He works out a way to smuggle into the prison with the help of Muslim Rashid. He starts to get more luxury from his gang. Then he gets squeezed by the ruthless Bazhir.

It's another tough prison movie of drugs, brutality, and racial division from Europe. It is heartless, ugly, and relentless. There is a change in protagonist from Rune to Rashid in the last act. It's a place where brutality works and the monsters rule.

I went to see this after I saw the trailer last week because I love the Scandinavian TV series that have been shown in Europe over the last few years. BTW, these series have been rated as "getting over the sub titles hangup" on TV....!!

Anyway, I loved Borgen which starred some of the same people.

However, although the acting/actors were first rate, and the photography good, if sombre, as it should have been, the story was trite.

I haven't see Le Prophete to which it is compared, but I have seen Shawshank. I cannot understand the comparison with Shawshank, a much better movie, not really on the same subject, except superficially.

It was gritty, nasty, illustrating well how low people can sink. So? As a movie supposedly about life in prison it was disjointed, bitty, disconnected. The general story line was clear, drug dealing in prison, but the relationships, the deals and the dealing, were poorly dealt with.

As was said in the previous reviews the last 20mins was hard to take, being so far from the rest of the movie.

For a production team with such a good filmography this is out of line.