Prison dramas have a soft spot in my heart. I am fascinated by the system overall – it’s flaws and corrosive effect over incarceration has on society at large – and find their cinema interpretations deeply intriguing. There’s a plethora of bad ones; for every Oz or The Night Of TV series or Sing Sing or Shawshank Redemption films there’s rows and rows of tiresome direct to video/straight to streaming entries. Thankfully Wasteman resides among the better ones and solidifies itself as a well crafted, excellently performed thriller that returns the genre to its raw roots and gritty realities of prison life. Propulsive and claustrophobic, the film excels in trapping you behind the concrete walls and cellblock bars. It gets under your skin, unafraid to get nasty and maintains a harrowing suspense that consistently escalates into a climax that is as satisfying as it bittersweet.
Directed by Cal McMau from a script by Hunter Andrews and Eoin Doran, Wasteman follows Taylor (David Jonsson) a timid prisoner working as a cook and a barber over the last 13 years of incarceration. Due to overpopulation, he learns that he is due for early release for good behavior and must craft a letter for a review board. As the thought of freedom consumes him and he begins working on his letter, a new cellmate Dee (Tom Blyth) arrives and immediately begins throwing a wrench in Taylor’s plans. A career criminal, Dee seems like a friend at first, but quickly transforms into an anchor that may end up keeping Taylor locked up indefinitely. Things become a game of cat and mouse as Taylor fights for freedom while Dee seeks to rule everything behind the prison walls.
All In On David Jonsson and Tom Blyth
I’ve been an early purchaser of stock in David Jonsson and after a few excellent turns in Plainclothes and now Wasteman, I’ve diversified my investment in Tom Blyth. Together, they provide an undeniable spark that simply can’t be put out, elevating an on paper predictable thriller into something more volatile and unsettling. Jonsson moves through the hardened exteriors of prisoners with a furrowed brow and meek disposition, and his desperation to be free from both incarceration and his own drug addiction is palpable. Blyth is an unpredictable live wire: brash, unhinged, sometimes charming but ever the narcissist, providing a perfect foil for Jonsson’s more subdued nature. Wasteman is a powder keg about to explode at all times, and with each new development and escalating event between them only heightens the tension and suspense. The pair is firing on all cylinders, and bring new layers to an already nuanced narrative.
Cal McMau displays a veteran savoy in his feature film debut, demonstrating a mastery of craft and grit. He imbues Wasteman with an immersive quality that excels in its minimalist approach. McMau never goes for melodrama or implausibility (if he can help it) and smartly opts to keep things as grounded as he can while telling a thrilling, twisty story. There is a true empathy for flawed men, wearing their mistakes, regret – or lack their of – on their sleeves at all times.
Wasteman feels like a raw nerve exposed, and the cyclical violence of the prison system is on full display across a multitude of depictions and inciting incidents. It is downright brutal in its unflinching visuals, with Lorenzo Levrini’s cinematography matching the grittiness and rough-around-the-edges setting. Even as it feels familiar it manages to avoid many of the aforementioned VOD tropes that often bog these kinds of films down.
Final Thoughts
Wasteman is sometimes suffocating (complimentary) as explores the strain of an overcrowded prison, but locks you in with its constant sense of dread and looming chaos around every corner. Jonsson and Blyth push the film over the edge of greatness, ushering it in to the canon of one of the best prison thrillers to come out in a long time. Even with all the depths it goes to exploring the system itself, it never feels preachy. It’s just brutally raw, unflinching prison life through the juxtaposing eyes of its leads. Wasteman is one of the best of its kind, examining not just the survival in a corrupt system but how we survive other people – particularly those who seek to destroy us under the guise of extending olive branches – and how we overcome our own shortcomings in hopes for reconnection and freedom.
Behind the concrete walls lies a immense profundity and unflinching critique of both systems and the human condition, and glimpses how things are and not how we want them to be. Simply put, Wasteman is excellent, and it may sport one of the best endings of the year.
Please put Jonsson and Blyth in everything from now on.
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