It's Perhaps A Bad Idea To Remake Classic Brit Films But This Isn't Too Bad

Theo Robertson

One wit suggested that the tagline of the classic British Borstal drama should have been " Just when you thought it was safe to go in to the greenhouse ... " Well just when you thought it was safe to go back to the DVD store where you rented American remakes of GET CARTER , etc along comes yet another remake of a classic British movie based on Alan Clark's brutal and bleak borstal British realist drama SCUM

One thing that strikes you about the differences between the two films is the ironic differences in culture between Britain and America . In Britain jails are seen as holiday camps where prisoners are surrounded by TVs , DVD players and computer games . I should point I'm using the modern day 21st Century view of British penal establishment with borstal ( Juvenile detention centres ) being a long forgotten memory . This contrasts with the perceived view both sides of the pond that any type of penal institution in America is a violent and brutal hell hole with physical and sexual violence depressingly routine . SCUM seems rather dated in that it's just too bleak where as DOG POUND fails because it's a little bit too nice

!!!!!! SPOILERS TO SCUM ( 1979 )!!!!!

Indeed the major difference between the two films is how the inmates are treated by the warders/correctional officers . SCUM gets off to a brutal start with Carling being assaulted by two of the screws who are portrayed in a cruel manner with perhaps the worst type of cruelty being an officer who witnesses the gang rape of Davis which he turns a blind eye to . In DOG POUND there's no such cruelty of indifference with officers being some sort of surrogate social workers . I don't doubt for a moment that COs in American juvenile detention centres would view themselves as rehabilitaters but it makes for a far less compelling film One wonders if director Kim Chapirion and screenwriter Jeremie Delon are trying to make a much more human film by portraying authority in this light . However they fail on a couple of major points . One is that they insert their own scenes or embellish scenes from the original without thinking it through . Effectively Carling - or Butch as he's called here - is told he'll be let out in two weeks if he behaves himself . Of course something happens that ends this but the inciting incident is so weak it loses credibility . . Likewise Davis is allowed to commit suicide in a crowded dorm by bleeding to death which isn't impossible but unlikely compared to the scene in the original Chapirion also misses the point that Clark's original was the archtypal realist film with no incidental music and subplots that disappear . This is a much more cohesive non realist film with a soundtrack

Perhaps there should be a third criticism and that is the casting . The cast of SCUM was fantastic . All of them were unknown at the time but several like Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels went on to appear in countless British films and TV shows up[ till today . Adam Butcher as Butch is no rough diamond geezer . He's probably a really nice guy in real life and never really convinces as someone who can take over a wing of a prison system . Likewise Shane Kippel as Davis never has victim stamped on his forehead unlike Julian Firth in SCUM

All in all this is a weaker more mainstream remake of a much revered film made in Britain in the late 1970s , a film that was highly quotable and oft mentioned by British teenagers in the 1980s . DOG POUND will appeal to anyone with an interest in films set in prisons but if you've seen the original source material it is lacking whilst ironically throws a spanner in the works when it goes its own way

score 6/10

Theo Robertson 8 November 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2515706/