Wasteman

I’m a big fan of high stress films. Dog Day Afternoon, Good Time, and The Lighthouse are some of my all time favorites. So Wasteman is an easy slam dunk in my eyes.

At a breezy ninety minutes, Cal McMau’s directorial debut Wasteman is a high strung thriller about the English prison system. We follow Taylor (David Jonsson) as he is about to be released on good behavior. However new inmate Dee (Tom Blyth) is about to shake things up for Taylor and the rest of the prisoners.

My biggest issue with this film is that it does overuse the vertical camera. A bit of it was nice, since it was from the prisoners point of view using their phones. But I think there was just a bit too much of it. The audio mixing isn’t great, which is pretty huge since almost all the characters have heavy accents, making them super difficult to understand at points.

But other than that this film was fantastic. Jonsson and Blyth’s performances were out of this world. I honestly believe that Jonsson may be nominated for an Oscar in the next five to ten years. He performs a monologue near the end of the film about why he is in prison, and it sent chills down my spine. Blyth was also great balancing between threatening yet still a little funny.

They do some other fun things with the camera, like having a character spit on it and have a low angle shot of all the prisoners from above. And of course this film would not be able to work if it wasn’t for the mood it sets. This film is so stressful, with its close ups and the realistic prison dialogue. Definitely not a casual watch but one that I recommend if you want something quick and raw.