Short Eyes

Based on Miguel Pina's play, this is almost certainly the most accurate and realistic portrayal of prison life ever put on screen. Gone are the pseudo-liberal/humanitarian themes of the decent prisoner desperately struggling to maintain his humanity in an inhumane environment where the real enemey is the guards and the system. In this film the prisoners recognize that they are violent, brutal, and vile and they rejoice in it. It is their standard of "cool" and "power", which makes it endlessly frightening, especially for the more meek prisoners. Bruce Davison gives an excellent performance as a middle class, white man placed in a men's house of detention for child molestation -- the one crime which repulses even the prisoners. It's a sobering and occasionally horrifying look on in the inside of the big house.