We Are Monster

Superbly constructed drama based on true events that happened at the Feltham Young Offenders Institute. Perfromances are excellent and the film will stay with you long after it has finished.

This movie is from murderer's perspective. It shows the Xenophobia and racism with good cinematography. I have personally faced someone like Stewart (a weed smoker & use to think and talk to himself), he threatened me in past. However, it wasn't in prison. Prison's aren't the only place where hatred is spread, there are many other places. I hope one day we become humans and forget our differences. These things happen at workplace, residences, etc. However, not everyone is same. But sometimes those responsible for checking these issues ignore the guidelines and are often not punished or disciplined. I want to thank the production team for at least bringing these issues into light in form of a great movie with entertainment.

We Are Monster (based on real life events)will stay with you, it provokes sympathy for the victim(s) and outrage and disbelief as to why a young man is murdered within his cell at Feltham Young Offenders Institute when it could and should have been prevented.

What causes the viewer considerable disquiet is the murderer's own story as we learn about his abusive childhood, at the hands of his racist, violent father, and his mother who turned away.

The lead role of the protagonist is played by Leesham Alexander. I hadn't seen any of his work before, his performance was mesmerizing and compelling, drawing you in to the murderer's highly disorganised and damaged view of the world, acutely paranoid and withdrawn he finds himself within Feltham having spent previous time in other YOIs alone but sharing a cell with a young Asian man. The unfolding events are told through the murder's perspective as he struggles and stumbles toward the inevitable, horrific but avoidable end.

The victim, convincingly played by another relative unknown, is a young man with a future who appears to have a rehabilitated himself is due to be released.

This film is unsettling, but rightly so, if you enjoy a film which is thought provoking and challenging this is for you. I hope it does well for the writer, director and cast because the story remains highly relevant following the subsequent inquiry and the lessons not (yet) learned.

Great direction from Antony Petrou and cinematography which captures the starkness of the institutions in which we place young people with little if any support. I suspect it will be uncomfortable viewing for the governor and warders/officers involved (some of whom tried to intervene and do right by their charges), as well as the Home Office and others. There is no getting away from the social and political issues highlighted.

When only a few reviews and mostly 8's? I liked it. Interesting because it's a true story. Just don't understand the rating.

8.5 of 10. The joy of a good monster film, including flaunting seemingly bad grammar at critics, but without having to suspend disbelief. This fact-based film gets you inside of a very different, and very real, Hannibal Lecter that is too pure to eat others but no less psychotic.

For the filmmakers, opting to attempt to recreate the story and character rather than do a documentary, the challenge is how to create thrills, suspense, and mystery for relatively recent history. They opt to focus on the "monster" man along, to a lesser extent, his enablers and the odd youth/minors prison atmosphere of the UK.

There are a few choices that make the film less interesting than it could be. For example, the monster's earlier history is relived through non-linear memories, making it hard for those unfamiliar with the person and what happened, those who are the main target of the film, to piece together the context or the horror and injustice of what happened. The writer and director needed to assume more ignorance and lack of interest in the audience.

Nonetheless, you'll never look at someone talking to themselves again quite the same and it's far more entertaining than watching someone dump a bucket of their own urine over their head on a Web video, though equally disgusting.