Film review: Screwed

YET another British prison drama that uses brutal violence to punctuate its story, Screwed at least attempts to subvert expectations slightly by focusing mostly on the guards rather than the inmates.

James D'Arcy takes the lead as an ex-squaddie who discovers his civvy-street employment prospects are limited to dealing drugs for his old friends or guarding those serving at Her Majesty's pleasure.

For the sake of his wife and child, he chooses the latter option, only to discover that this supposedly honest, respectable profession is riddled with systemic corruption, violent attacks and colleagues who'd as soon shiv you in back as they would come to your aid in a fight with an inmate. The cast – including Noel Clarke as cocky crime kingpin Truman – scowl in all the right places, but as the grim action unfolds and the pressures of the job send D'Arcy's Sam into a predictably awful downward spiral, the film, ironically, becomes imprisoned in its own attempts to break free of convention.