Starred Up

Starred Up (2014) is David Mackenzie's British prison drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Nineteen-year-old Eric is shipped to an adult jail ahead of schedule — he's more dangerous behind bars than he ever was outside.

Within hours he's fashioned a shiv, bitten a guard, and made it clear he answers to no one. In the same wing sits Neville, the father he barely knows. Jack O'Connell plays the rage with no brakes; Ben Mendelsson plays a dad who can't decide whether to shield his son or beat him down himself. The one thread back toward something human is an anger-management group a volunteer therapist drags him into.

The script came from Jonathan Asser, who actually ran sessions like that in real prisons for years, and it shows — in dialogue thick with genuine slang and fights staged without a shred of polish. Two years before Hell or High Water, Mackenzie works here in an almost documentary register. Stream Starred Up (2014) online on iFILM.