This is a fast-paced thriller set
amid a prison riot, but it is also an engaging character study of half a dozen
disparate people whose lives are affected by this event and a mordant comment
on the ‘security state.’
This movie means business. In a
short, wordless prologue before the title appears, we see an inmate improvise a
cutting edge from plastic that he uses to slash his wrists the right way: deep
cuts along the forearms, not ‘plea for help’ scratches across the wrists.
The story opens with a nice-looking
young man in a jacket and tie walking through a decrepit maximum security
prison with two uniformed senior guards. The set is the former Spanish regional
prison at Zamora, north of Salamanca in western Spain, closed thirteen years
before the shoot; many of the extras are former prisoners.
Juan Oliver (Alberto Ammanin), a
new hire scheduled to start the next day, has come a day early to orient
himself and meet his new colleagues in order to make a good first impression
and to hit the ground running on his first day.
Juan is thirty years old, happily
married, and his wife, Elena (Marta Etura), is six months pregnant; we see
their life together in flashbacks. The couple moved to Zamora for Juan’s job.
Two guards, Armando Nieto (Fernando
Soto) and Germán (Félix Cubero), give Juan—and the viewer—the quick-and-dirty
lowdown about the prison, the inmates, and how the system works.
‘Never trust any of them,’ Armando
says. ‘Never forget where you are, and look them in the eye. Never let them see
you are scared.’
‘In the eye,’ adds German, ‘but
watch their hands. They’re like magicians. Nothing here, nothing there, and
presto!’ he says, pulling out a spoon.
These and other details of Juan’s
brief introduction soon become critically important. In a quick succession of
random events, Juan goes from being a curious observer to one in a mob of
rioting prisoners.
The ‘Cell 211’ of the title is the
site of the prologue; it is also where Juan awakes after a blow to the head,
and needs to start thinking very quickly to stay alive.
The top dog is Malamadre (Luis
Toser), a bald, bearded and tattooed lifer who looks like an American outlaw
biker. Malamadre’s henchmen are his ‘right hand man’ Tachuelo (Vincente Romero)
and Apache (Carlos Bardem, brother of Javier), who ‘controls the Colombians.’
Malamadre started looking for his
moment when he heard through the prison grapevine that the government was
quietly holding three members of the militant Basque separatist group ETA in a
prison wing. Malamadre’s plan is to use these high profile political prisoners
as hostages to force the government to improve prison conditions.
Jon Arteago ‘Potolo’ (Patxi
Bisquert) an ETA militant sentenced to 1,200 years for seven murders and an
attempted kidnapping, warns Malamadre: ‘If any of you lays a finger on us, you
can kiss your whole family goodbye.’
‘You might be doing me a favor,’
Malamadre replies. ‘My only family is my cousin in La Coruña, and he’s a
fucking prick.’
Juan is a problem for the inmates
because he is not socialized to the prison. He is too ‘normal’. They do not
recognize him as a guard, and he does not feel to them like a guard or a con.
But he has balls. Malamadre and the other prisoners are impressed by his pluck
as much by his physical endowment (they made him strip). Malamadre laughingly
nicknames him ‘Calzones.’ His henchmen distrust and envy Juan.
Juan is no less a problem for
prison authorities. A cherry guard, a regular, and three high profile
politicals are inside. In Madrid, the Minister of the Interior dispatches a
company of SWAT commandos and insists that there will be no negotiation with
prisoners. The president’s office is anxious that the Basques be extracted
unharmed.
It does not take long for the
Spanish and international broadcast media to show up at the prison gates
demanding answers—the media and the public, including pregnant Elena, who
cannot contact her husband or get a straight answer from his employers.
The prison riot is portrayed as a
product of a repressive and illegal system; the atmosphere outside the gates
also turns ugly. Straightforward, truthful answers are not forthcoming when the
powers that be do not really want to know or hear the truth themselves.
This is where the genre gets bent
to political commentary, as in the films of the Brazilian José ‘Zé’ Padilha.
The president and interior minister
do not want to look bad. José Roca, the warden (Manuel Solo), acts as though he
can see his whole career and political life passing before his eyes. He does
not have to—nor want to—know that unseemly things go on to ensure the smooth
operation of his facility.
Armando, the head of the guards,
one of the men who told Juan about how the system works on his tour, braces for
a rough landing. And José Utrilla (Antonio Rasines), a carry-over from the old
regime (Franco’s time), stands ready to bust an informer’s gut or crack a
protester’s head if he or his superiors needed something done.
Thus, Juan must rely on his cool
and quick wits. Malamadre is a tough con who has nothing to lose, and
appreciates Juan’s heart, his brains and his cool. Their friendship is the
center of this story.
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