‘Wasteman’ is a Riveting Study of Debasement Behind Bars

Cal McMau’s debut feature, “Wasteman,” is a tense moral thriller that is often hard to watch but is more nuanced than you might expect. The setting is an unnamed English prison, an overcrowded and understaffed facility that is characterized by rust, filth, and a bureaucracy that tries to get by when it isn’t complicit in illicit doings. There’s not a good guy within its confines.Which isn’t to say that goodness, however compromised, is altogether absent. Taylor (David Jonsson) is the “wasteman,” a British slang term connoting someone who is living a life of little promise or utility. An addict perpetually on the lookout for the next fix, he ekes by on his skills as a haircutter for his fellow inmates. Mr. Jonsson portrays Taylor as a soul shaped by tough circumstances and wearied by bad choices. It’s a remarkable, lived-in performance.Taylor keeps his head down and doing so serves him well. A social worker announces that he’s eligible for release under a new government initiative to make the prison system more manageable. Should he continue his good behavior for two additional weeks, Taylor will be released. The thought of having to acclimate to the outside world is daunting — he has, after all, been behind bars for thirteen years — but is mitigated by the possibility of reconnecting with a teenage son, Adam (Cole Martin).Enter Taylor’s new cellmate, Dee (Tom Blyth), a wiry thug possessed of a manic virility who is the major domo of a network that trades in contraband. Sneakers, chocolate bars, cell-phones, and drugs are just part of Dee’s inventory, and he’s brazen enough to openly tout his wares in the space he shares with Taylor. This puts both of them at odds with the prison’s reigning blackmarketeers, Paul (a sinewy Alex Hassell) and his hulking Man Friday, Gaz (Corin Silva).Dee recognizes Taylor’s drug habit from the get-go, but also acknowledges that his cellmate’s longing for a relationship with Adam is real. Dee proves helpful by allowing Taylor to use his phone as a means of locating Adam. Before you know it, father and son are corresponding on social media and, later, conversing on the phone. When Dee has his minions on the outside deliver a new set of shoes to Adam, Taylor’s gratitude is palpable.Nothing comes without a price in this milieu, especially with a cock-of-the-walk as in-your-face as Dee. When Paul and Gaz see that the market for their goods has dwindled, they pay a visit to Dee and Taylor, whereupon a righteous beating takes effect. Dee ends up hospitalized, but not before Paul and Gaz film the entire event on their phones, including strong-arming a reluctant Taylor to repeatedly punch an unconscious Dee in the face. There is no mercy in these scenes. Be warned.Mr. McCau and his screenwriters, Hunter Andrews and Eoin Doran, have crafted a film that is as engrossing as it is grotty, up to and including the nail-biting final moments. They’re aided by an excellent cast — even the bit parts carry conviction— and the intermittent use of self-made videos is more than a gimmick. Mr. McCau’s inadvertent encounter with actual video recordings by inmates was, he writes, “raw, unfiltered, and terrifying.” Even at a remove afforded by fiction, the images he’s replicated are deeply unsettling, a marker of a humanity that is both debased and undergoing debasement. “Wasteman” is riveting.

‘Wasteman’ is a Riveting Study of Debasement Behind Bars

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