Shot Caller movie review & film summary (2017)

But despite its unabashed fondness for clichés and tired tropes, “Shot Caller” mostly succeeds in its aims because of Waugh’s sober, matter-of-fact approach to the material. There’s an abiding sense of inevitability that runs through the film, as if all the events that occur were predestined because of systemic rot. “Shot Caller” isn’t the type of film that would use the phrase “prison-industrial complex” but that ultimately works to its advantage since its implications live in its bones. There’s a casual brutality at play that never feels grotesque in Waugh’s hands, just sadly unavoidable.

The film follows Jacob Harlon (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, acquitting himself well), a family man sent to prison on manslaughter charges after a fatal traffic accident that left his best friend (Max Greenfield) dead. As one can reasonably surmise, he quickly falls into a white supremacist prison gang initially for survival but he soon becomes acclimated to the lifestyle (or does he?). He shuts out his wife (Lake Bell, who deserves better than these thankless roles) and his son (Jonathon McClendon) after receiving a longer sentence when he’s identified during a prison riot. After ten years, he’s finally released, under the watchful eye of his parole officer Kutcher (Omari Hardwick), but he’s almost immediately thrown back into the criminal world. Waugh makes it abundantly clear that it’s Jacob who must now determine his own fate.

In case it wasn’t obvious, Jacob does determine his own fate in a defiantly self-flagellating manner. The actual narrative mechanics of “Shot Caller” are telegraphed from miles away, but Waugh’s weaknesses in screenwriting are frequently made up by his clean, functional direction. The film’s first half moves at a brisk pace, in part because Waugh and editor Michelle Tesoro maneuver between scenes, introduce new characters, and lay out different environments with restrained confidence. Though he takes plenty of shortcuts, Waugh also provides the audience with just enough information and time so that nothing and no one feels one-dimensional. Credit should also be given to the film’s supporting cast (Jon Bernthal, Emory Cohen, and Jeffrey Donovan, to name a few), all of whom do wonders with the little they’ve been given.