Dog Pound review

Dog Pound (18, 91 mins)
Director: Kim Chapiron

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

 At a youth correctional facility in Montana, three new inmates aged 15 to 17 arrive for varying offences: hothead Butch, ladies’ man Davis and quiet Angel. The facility’s stated aim is to rehabilitate the boys, the guards are fair, and if they serve their terms without incident they may have a future. With such solid foundations, it’s a shame Dog Pound spends so long peddling the clichés of every prison movie ever made, serving up incidents from the daily routine involving drugs, violence both unprovoked and recriminatory, and codes of silence. But the sobering conclusion is that for all the good intentions, one way or another through circumstance, bad luck or their own actions, the system will consume these boys, and it’s this that leaves Dog Pound bleakly memorable.