WASTEMAN Review

Let me tell you something about David Jonsson. The man has been in five films and already has a gaze that could make you feel personally responsible for every bad decision you have every made. In Wasteman he plays Taylor, a guy who has spent thirteen years in prison trying to become invisible, and Jonsson is so good at conveying that particular flavour of quiet desperation that I spent most of the runtime wanting to slide him a coffee and a hug through the screen.

Then Tom Blyth shows up as his new cellmate, Dee, and absolutely destroys the vibe. On purpose. With joy. Dee is the kind of man who brings an air fryer to prison and considers this a personality. He deals drugs, he grins like a shark who just discovered teeth, and he drags the nearly paroled Taylor into his chaos with the cheerful disregard of someone who has genuinely never once considered that actions have consequences. Blyth plays him like he was born to ruin someone's day and is having the time of his life doing it.

The script does not quite match what these two are cooking. It keeps nudging at interesting things, class, race. the spectacular dysfunction of the British prison system, and then scurrying back to safer genre ground before anything gets too uncomfortable. You can feel the better, braver film lurking underneath, slightly frustrated, occasionally banging on the walls to be let out. Fitting, really.

The prison itself deserves a mention too. Production designer Phoebe Platman and cinematographer Lorenzo Levrini have built a world so airless and metallic and blue that you will feel faintly claustrophobic watching it from your own couch, which is presumably considerably more comfortable than anywhere in this film.

The riot sequences hit hard. But the moments that linger are the quieter ones, shot through grainy phone screens, life on the inside rendered in vertical video like a particularly grim social media scroll.

First time director Cal McMau shoots this thing with such restless, format hopping energy that you forgive the script its timidity. Not entirely, but enough.

Come for the performances. Stay because you forgot to leave.

🍿 SCORE = 71/100