Shot Caller

I re-watched Shot Caller (2017) last night, and I felt like writing about it as I haven’t posted here in a while. 

I watch quite a lot of crime movies, it’s one of my favourite genres, but I can't say that the prison movie has ever really grabbed me as much. I feel like they generally follow very similar premises - the person is completely innocent and must endure animal-like behaviour from the other inmates, the prisoner must pay for their sins and learn the error of their ways, or it’s some kind of power struggle. Generally it’s always the same kind of troupe, so I can't say I was particularly excited by Shot Caller when I first heard of it and honestly if my favourite actor hadn’t been in it I would never have bothered. Which goes to show what you can be missing out on sometimes!

Despite the cheesy title and Nikolaj’s horrid mustache (I couldn't even bring myself to use pictures of him with it for this entry, sorry) this really is a great movie, with a lot of complexities that keep you guessing up to the end. I’ve also seen a lot of people online, including former prisoners, say that it’s one of the more accurate portrayals of the US prison system too which isn't something you can often say about a Hollywood movie.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau stars as the main character Jacob who later goes by the street name 'Money', and the film is told both through present day and flashback which isn’t a narrative device I always enjoy but it’s really effective here as it's perfectly paced and slowly reveals exactly what’s happening in the present day and how our main character got here in the first place.

Jacob is a stockbroker with a successful, enviable lifestyle; he has a loving relationship with his wife who is in the middle of pursuing her dream career thanks to her husband’s income, a young son, and a beautiful home - he's basically living the "American dream". And the tragedy of his situation is how it could simply happen to anyone: one night he and his wife are out for dinner with friends, he’s the designated driver but has one drink too many, he gets distracted by his friends in the car and runs a red light, and before he knows it he ends up with a DUI manslaughter charge as his best friend dies in the backseat of his car. Due to his grief and an unsympathetic lawyer he accepts a plea deal for less time in prison, but he quickly learns that due to the severity of his charges he’s to be placed in a maximum security facility and he must do anything he can to protect both himself and his family on the outside.

"The fact is, we all started out as someone's little angel. And a place like this forces us to become warriors or victims. Nothing in between can exist here."

It’s a really heart wrenching movie, I think most of all because it shows how a perfectly innocent regular person can have their life turned completely upside down with one mistake that had devastating consequences, and become completely corrupted by the system that’s supposed to rehabilitate them. And as a viewer it forces you to reconsider this dichotomous good guys/bad guys, us vs them attitude that people generally have towards prisoners. "Oh that would never happen to me because I'm not like that" - yeah, but accidents happen and what if it did? What would you do for survival? How far would you go to protect your child?

I'm hesitant to say too much about this movie because it does have a lot of twists and turns to the plot and I really don't want to spoil it. But it's so well structured with a phenomenal cast and vastly overlooked. Please watch it. Don't let the mustache put you off.