If you're a squaddie who only just managed to survive Iraq, you really don't want to take a job as a prison officer.
That, suggests Reg Traviss's film, based on the book of a former warden, might be the equivalent of dropping from the frying pan straight into the fire.
James D'Arcy's ex-soldier faces bent screws, corrupt governors, violence, rape, coke snorting, snitches, perverts and bang-ups without flinching until he can take no more.
The cast is good (Noel Clarke and Frank Harper, in particular). But Traviss never lets up, so that his long, hard stare at a vicious world hasn't the power of something like A Prophet which, for all its gory detail, looked for some kind of redemption. Here we get everything nasty piled up like a great bag of detritus, and hardly a hint of anything positive at all.
Screwed
Cert: 18
