Just saw this film at the Camerimage Festival in Poland. I don't know what angered me more, the fact that they made us watch 30 mins. of unjustified torture, or that the director managed to screw up this film, even though he had a good DOP, (mostly) good casting, real locations and a true background story. first of all, if you shoot a film in a real prison, that means you want authenticity. so why not achieve this, by also having the actors improvise a bit, instead of making all dialogue sound like it was scripted by an 18 year old, who has seen Alan Clarke's "Scum" a few too many times. this made some of the scenes, especially the ones with "Frau Schmitt" seem like a TV soap drama, rather than a hard hitting prison film. I think this was extremely unfair to the main actors, who seemed to try their best, but, with the exception of Frederick Lau, all seemed unbelievable to me. Next, if you make a film about something that's so horrible, that we can't understand it, don't just show "What" happened, show "Why" it happened. I've never seen a film, in which the motives for something so cruel and disgusting were just never given at all - maybe "Saw". But it seemed to me that the filmmaker had the goal to make the people reflect, but if there's no motive, then the deeds become just "Evil" (brilliantly used in Funny Games) and unexplainable. the only goal someone will achieve by that, is to make us hate and fear these people even more. but isn't that the job of the yellow press? i thought a filmmaker's job was to raise questions and not give answers, if making a social commentary. i'm sure, the director's comment would be, that to leave these motives out, makes us think about it more - well, if you make all characters involved, 2 dimensional, then thats not very likely. and last but not least, if you copy a brilliant director like Alan Clarke, look at how he did his films first, and his motives to make his films. don't just copy people! I give it 3 points for the camera, Frederick Lau, and because i liked some of the extras, but will withdraw one for the terrible last 30 mins. i found it especially disrespectful, not only for the audience, but for the victim of the real crime. So don't believe the hype! this film is mainly just bad filmmaking! cruel only to the audience, his actors and authenticity. It's like someone who wants to be Haneke, but made Saw 6. Good Night And Good Luck!