Cell 211 is a brilliantly ingenious Spanish prison drama and I would recommend it even though I didn’t see so much of it.
Cell 211 is a brilliantly ingenious Spanish prison drama and I would recommend it even though I didn’t see so much of it. I might even have seen as little as 40 per cent, there are so many head-behind-hands moments. It is packed with Tarantino-style violence, and, I think, even a ear being sliced off — a ear was about to be sliced off and, when I looked up again, it was definitely gone, so I’m pretty sure this is what happened — but the plotting is so fine and the suspense so blinding and the character strokes so masterful I was totally gripped. (Gripped while wishing it was all over, but gripped all the same.) Usually, I would not see a film like this. But, in a Harry Potter week, you have to take whatever else you can get…and, frankly, I think I’d prefer to not watch an ear being sliced off than actually watch Hermione prissy-ing it about all over the place. It’s just the way I am, I guess. (See Toby Young review, page 49.)
The set-up is simple yet wondrously clever. Juan (played by Argentinian newcomer Alberto Ammann, who is a dish and excellent; a sort of Latino version of James McAvoy) is a prison guard who turns up to his new job a day early. Big mistake, Juan, big mistake.
As his fellow guards are giving him a tour of the high-security cell block, where the most dangerous prisoners are held, a riot breaks out and he is hit on the head by a lump of concrete, and knocked out. The other guards dump him in Cell 211, which is empty, and skedaddle, thinking they will retrieve him once everything gets under control. But when Juan comes round, the inmates have taken over the prison, they are all locked in, and if Juan knows one thing it is this: if the prisoners find out he is a guard he is dead meat. He must pretend to be a newly arrived prisoner.
In a furious panic, he removes his shoe laces and belt, and stuffs them under the mattress. Did you think someone removing their shoe laces and belt and stuffing them under a mattress couldn’t possibly be exciting? Well, although you are right about most things, in this instance you are wrong. I had my heart in my mouth, as I always did when I wasn’t otherwise holding my head in my hands. This film will play havoc with your anatomy and, if you are truly unlucky, you may find yourself with your head in your mouth, which takes some untangling.
The top dog inside is Malamadre, as played by Luis Tosar, who is superb, as all the actors are. (Performance-wise, this film is five star through and through.) Malamadre translates as ‘bad mother’ and he is the baddest mother around. He is serving a 1,000-year sentence, or something, has nothing to lose, and is like a pit bull, but with tattoos and a goatee and shaved head. He buys Juan’s story and, recognising he is smart and literate, takes him under his wing.
The situation, to put it mildly, is tense and never lets up. I don’t think there is a single un-tense, non-suspenseful moment. Obviously, there is: will Juan be discovered? But, also, there is: are the Swat team about to storm in? And: is the government negotiator for real, or just toying with them? And: will the Basque terrorist hostages be killed? And: will the vicious, sadistic guard get his comeuppance? (Yes, is the short answer, not that I saw any of it.)
There are many, many remarkable plot twists and, while I can now see how highly improbable some of them are — there is one involving Juan’s pregnant wife and a shot of her on television that may well be ludicrous — it just does not matter. It does not matter because the world that the director, Daniel Monzón, has created seems so real, and because the characters respond in ways that also seem real. Plus, they are given the freedom to shift morally as they do so. Might Malamadre not be rather honourable, in his way? And as for Juan, although the change in him is shocking, it is never unbelievably shocking, which is key.
So, this is a truly terrific film, from what I saw of it, and I would like to thank Harry Potter for leading me here, albeit indirectly. Thanks, Harry, and now go away, there’s a good boy.
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