There’s no rulebook when it comes to a movie set in prison; a filmmaker can play it straight (“Cool Hand Luke“), go for the comedy (“The Longest Yard,” “Let’s Go to Prison“), adapt any manner of story (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “Escape from Alcatraz, ” “Midnight Express“) or head in a completely different direction. A movie called “Inside” attempts to execute the latter, and to say that the result exists somewhere outside any of the approaches listed would be as accurate as a Morgan Freeman narration. This isn’t necessarily a good thing.
“Inside” largely follows Mel (Vincent Miller), locked up as a juvenile and facing imminent release as he seeks out a parole sponsor and participates in support groups; it’s here that we meet Warren (Guy Pearce), also on the verge of parole and someone who will soon take Mel under his wing. Warren, it seems, has an opportunity for Mel, as the young man simultaneously works on crafting a letter to the deceased victim for whom he was responsible, and Pearce wishes to reunite with his estranged son once freed. This opportunity, however, isn’t of financial gain; instead, Warren wants despised fellow inmate Shepard (Cosmo Jarvis) dead, just as Mel has begun working as the musical accompanist to the weekly church sessions Shepard leads through a gravelly voice and long, drawn-out sermons. If it sounds like a confusing muddle, with a directionless veil overshadowing the lot, that’s precisely because it is.
When the interaction between Mel and Warren strays from the scattershot pieces of trivia the two share, a movie seemingly bent on offering little in the form of some commentary on life behind bars or an exploration of the psyche of three very different men as they cope with their circumstances begins to materialize. The Australian setting quickly becomes irrelevant; this could take place anywhere, which is likely half the point, as a movie such as this needs not lean heavily into such details as geographical location when the overarching theme could easily be labeled as redemption. Warren, for example, comes from an abusive father who had similarly found himself incarcerated, but in carrying the ghosts of his past, from where does the motivation to take out the sinister, meandering Shepard stem? It’s here somewhere, but the film’s one location struggles to reveal answers. However, a nice detour does present itself when Warren’s eventual parole sees him seeking out his son, which erodes their first conversation in years. It’s hard to watch, and differently, so is “Inside.”
Yes, let it be said that all three leads wholly commit to the gig. However, the lack of watchability defines this film as an outing that attempts to stitch together its narrative threads into something meaningful. Miller’s wide-eyed, expressionless gaze somehow works as an unintentional audience surrogate, something writer/director Charles Williams likely never intended to be the outcome. It’s a film that starts and ends the same, with no impactful lessons learned, other than to look elsewhere going forward if you need your prison movie fix. [C-]
