Cal McMau’s “Wasteman” is a prison picture about a man who isn’t built for the prison experience: a scrawny, anxious loner named Taylor (David Jonsson). Thirteen years ago, he was dealing pills at raves to support his then-infant son and the boy’s mother, a hookup who became a commitment. He unknowingly sold bad pills to two teenagers who died after ingesting them, and was found guilty of manslaughter. Since then, he’s avoided conflict, numbed his pain with narcotics, and earned pocket money as a kitchen worker, a cellblock barber, and a courier for an in-house drug dealer named Paul (Alex Hassel) and his cellmate and enforcer, Gaz (Corin Silva). One day, to Taylor’s astonishment, he learns he’s about to be released, not for being a model prisoner but because the system is overcrowded. If he stays out of trouble just a little while longer, he’ll be free.
Then he gets a new cellmate named Dee (Tom Blyth), a transfer who sells drugs and contraband. Dee drafts Taylor as his new assistant and won’t take no for an answer. What follows is an escalating series of confrontations between inmates representing competing factions both inside and outside the prison. Their ranks include Dee’s mates on the street, invoked as bogeymen who can destroy Taylor’s son and the boy’s mother on a moment’s notice; and Paul and Gaz, the prison hustler equivalent of a locally owned cafe whose owners are ruined when a Starbucks opens across the street and blame the barista who used to work for them.
The increasingly nasty one-upsmanship of McMau’s characters keeps us invested as spectators. But that’s not the source of the film’s hypnotic pull; it’s the evolving interplay between Taylor and Dee. Dee is a smooth operator. He impresses Taylor by trash-talking prison employees. He seduces Taylor with illicit substances. And he lends Taylor his personal cell phone so he can call his now 14-year-old son.
By the end of the movie (which runs 90 briskly paced minutes but feels much longer in a good way), Taylor emerges as the more self-aware half of the duo. He knows he’s a prisoner of both the system and his roommate, but forces himself to be OK with it because he just wants to get out and start a new life. Dee swaggers into the joint like a scumbag rockstar, setting terms, making demands, wielding his mates on the outside as retaliatory weapons, and otherwise carrying on as if he runs the place. His oblivious confidence would be sad if it weren’t so funny. As Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.
Jonsson and Blyth are an inspired pairing. Their instincts for truth and disinterest in looking cool (or even dignified; this is a rare film where tough guys whimper after a beating) fuel one great scene after another. Jonsson, the brilliant young character actor from HBO’s “Industry” and “Alien Romulus,” is perfect as Taylor, who keeps his thoughts to himself but is a Jumbotron for his emotions. We feel every sensation Taylor experiences as we look into Jonsson’s expressive face. His haunting eyes default to fear, anguish, and sorrow, even during phone calls with his son.
Blyth matches Jonsson in impact, though it takes a while to process the depth of his achievement because the character’s invulnerability is so thick. Dee is more cunning than intelligent. On some deep level, he seems to know that his position is fragile and could be crushed by a renegade meathead or a vengeful jailhouse snitch. But Taylor’s unease doesn’t translate into preventative action because he mistakes his own animal cunning for genuine intelligence. Future lists of great prison movie relationships need to include this one.
“Wasteman” is one of those modest gems that’s made outside of the usual channels and is sure to land on cinephiles’ radar screens eventually, if not immediately. There are a few irritants and missteps. It probably relies too much on music-driven montages to punt the plot along. The handheld camerawork does a good job of conveying immediacy and “realness” but crosses the line into affectation and messiness. Some of the close-quarters beatings and fights are diminished by shooting and editing so chaotically that the action becomes incomprehensible. For the most part, though, it’s a powerful debut by filmmakers who understand human nature and would rather enlighten than provoke.
Is it a realistic look at modern incarceration? Only a person with deep knowledge of the British penal system could answer that question, and this reviewer is not that person. Nothing ridiculous happens. Even with stuff that might raise an eyebrow—like Dee and Taylor filling their tiny concrete doghouse with ostentatious merch displays that they don’t even bother to hide from administrators and guards—the framework of institutional decay goes a long way towards convincing us to suspend our disbelief.
The result is a successful fusion of two seemingly incompatible approaches to the prison thriller. “Wasteman” is simultaneously a gritty psychodrama packed with sharply observed details, such as the drones delivering banned items to inmates’ windows, and the vertically composed cell phone videos of violent acts by prisoners and street criminals, posted online to humiliate victims and intimidate rivals; and a hardboiled macho melodrama that’s mainly concerned with making you wonder which of these tough guys will make it to the finish line. It’s a genre piece with tragic weight.
