Release

Just caught this film at the End of the Pier International Film Festival, Worthing.

It is a highly original film with some very contemporary and 'hot topic' issues raised in it's dark and twisted narrative.

Father Jack is in prison for a crime that becomes apparent only after his clandestine relationship with a prison officer takes hold and blossoms into a honest and trustworthy love affair. His fellow detainees, however, believe he's a paedophile. The prisoners driven on by a mad prisoner who clearly controls more than just harden criminals inside the prison walls, is determined to bring about 'prison' justice on the Priest.

It is tense and atmospheric and full of surprises. There was a palpable collective desire from the audience to see Jack leave prison and start a new life with the prison officer.

The prison is shot and directed masterfully with imaginative edits and dialogue that keeps you hooked. Religious hypocrisy is everywhere in the prison. The use of candles - right up until the end of the credits, is a device used with skill and a cleverness - as it links the turmoil of questioning ones faith with the iconography of the burning flame representing Christ's light in the Church that Jack once belonged to.

The performances are superb, Daniel Brocklebank, Bernie Hodges, Garry Summers all bringing believable characters and the situation that they find themselves in to life.

The film won Best UK Feature Drama - and deservedly so. It was a mixed audience and the debate about the film's content and it's meaning carried on out on the pavement outside the cinema afterwards.

Great stuff from indie Brit film makers.

Terrible acting, uninviting characters (or more so stereotyped caricatures), awful camera work, contrived and completely unbelievable plot, tacky music, poor flow of scene transitions, the list just goes on... It makes a artsy fartsy high school film project seem more sophisticated in comparison. I was not sure if I was enduring an intended cheap, bad soap opera imitation exploiting on gay, religious, and prison themes just to attract certain groups of audience. This is basically artistic masturbation without any regard to giving the audience a involving story telling experience. My friend and I finally walked out after 30 minutes of this awful, awful movie, and we felt we should have been paid to endure this torturous bad film, instead of us paying to see it!

The makers clearly had a good go at presenting some big issues but it's not enough. It's not so much a story as a bunch of socio-political observations strung together by a school play.

And while it shows dedication that the cast must have worked for a share of the profits (ie. nothing) the acting is *so* poor that it detracts horribly from the film's various statements. The statements themselves are worthy but presented in a simplistic way that lacks punch - (Metaphorical) prisons are dark and bad; (Metaphorical) freedom is light and good. Good-looking gays on one side; ugly mutants on the other.

I don't want to pile up the complaints because I think the motivation for the film is sound but you've got to do better if you're going to ask for people's time and money.

Wow these guys know how to take a tired market that has become swollen with pretty poor product and looked the gay audience in the face and said - you don't have to watch all that mundane,clichéd crap - you can endure and watch decent and well made films with central gay characters. They did it with SHANK and blew audiences away and with RELEASE they have gone further.

This is a chilling prison drama that draws you into the claustrophobia of the nondescript prison from from one. Father Gillie, stripped of his priestly garb and is marched through the recognisable process of being showered and dressed in prison clothes. Housed in his cell with a younger troubled man it doesn't take long before rumours abound that the Priest is really a paedophile. Now an easy target thanks to the insinuations he becomes hunted. Security comes in the form of a prison guard who befriends him and with whom love and an affair develops. When safely behind locked doors their illicit relationship blossoms and only then do we learn of the true crime that has put our priest inside...

You will be drawn in, feel uncomfortable with the claustrophobia of the prison, the atmosphere is oppressively scary and you will become emotionally overcome at the true confession of his crime. BUT more importantly you will want more than anything for Father Gillie to get out and to be with his new lover, Officer Martin Crane.

It's deep, dark and very moving. Great performances from all the cast....all I can say is you'll never look at surgical blue gloves in the same way every again after seeing this film......

I have to see SHANK after seeing this film. Found it in my local gay bookshop and had an afternoon to spare lying on the sofa. All I can say is thank goodness I watched it during the day with the curtains open.

I despair of the comments that have been viciously and unnecessarily negatively posted on this film. It belies it's low budget to fill the screen with an engaging story told with devices reminiscent of older films and pioneered by the greats like Hitchcock and Polanski.

The story and setting combined with clever flashbacks and time shifts as well as a horrible nightmare sequence enable you as a viewer to see through some of the less natural performances and remain glued to the what unfolds.

On the making of on the DVD they revealed what the location was used for when not being filmed in and I was amazed at this revelation - it was very cleverly used.

The central cast lead by Daniel Brocklebank and supported by Garry Sumers and Bernie Hodge all gave strong performances and depth to their characters.

I liked this film a lot - this isn't the best review ever written I realise but if you like clever storytelling and well made films this is one to try.