Warning: not your typical ‘jail-break’ film.

Now I don’t claim to be an expert on prison films, but even I can tell that this is something special. To start with, the music which ranges from sweeping elegant passages, to scary and unnerving piano string plucking, and some brilliant rhythmical tie-ins to the action on screen is, no other word for it, awesome! This film had me performing gasps, goosebumps, sobs, flinches, jumps, sweaty palms and white knuckles. As well as all of that, the official theme was written by Coldplay, wootmuch?

More gushing (and a few spoilers) after the break

A cast headed by Brian Cox of ‘Bourne Supremacy’ and Dominic Cooper of ‘The History Boys’, is bolstered by Joseph Fiennes, Damian Lewis and Liam Cunningham to name but a few, (thanks IMDB) makes for a very strong, highly emotional and visually striking picture, which makes me very much not want to go to prison, but at the same time, want to escape from it so coolly – have you ever emerged out of the sewer into a tube station last used as a WW2 bunker? No.

The storyline is lucratively action-packed with brilliantly edited shots cutting from Joseph Fiennes bare-knuckle (and bare-chested) boxing with a HUGE ginger man, to obtain a diamond tooth for steel-cutting purposes; to the sadistic, predatory and quite frankly petrifying molestation of Lacey (Cooper) by Tony (Steven Mackintosh) in the prison showers (ew).

To me this film was the most atmospheric of its style that I’ve seen (but I haven’t seen ‘Shawshank Redemption’), it was very poignant, and the use of sound and silence really emphasised the emotion, especially at the end. I won’t say I wasn’t crying on the way home…