French writer/directo r Kim Chapiron has openly acknowledged the debt his film owes to Alan Clarke’s seminal Borstal pic Scum (1979).
Yet Dog Pound has a brutal grimness all its own, as three teenagers are admitted to a juvenile penitentiary where they variously grapple with rigid discipline, bullying and self-destructive despair.
With largely improvised dialogue and a cast including genuine ex-offenders, Chapiron captures a powerful stench of authenticity.
Meanwhile, as Butch, Adam Butcher gives a performance of coiled intensity that recalls the young Malcolm McDowell.
