Director: Daniel Monzon
Running Time: 108 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: January 9th, 2012
In principle, a prison is a great place to set a movie. By its very nature it’s a hotbed of tension, with different sides, agendas and emotions battling against one another. As many prison movies have shown though, because there’s so much going on in a jail it’s a place that’s often difficult to tame on screen, leading to films that are either too dumb, too unrealistic or too haphazardly hectic.
Cell 211 is a rare case of a prison flick that manages to keep control of everything, while weaving a complex narrative where the tension comes from the characters as much as the situation. Juan (Alberto Ammann) is a young man who’s got a job as a prison guard and is touring the jail the day before he’s due to start work. After getting knocked unconscious just as a prison riot break out, Juan is abandoned in the empty cell 211 when the guards make a run for it. [Read more…]