Movie Reviews: Shot Caller

Shot Caller
directed by Ric Roman Waugh 

I remember the righteous living and doing all I knew for good/If I could change this corruption you know I would if I only could

A Shot Caller is the person or persons in a prison gang who has the authority (keys) for his gang for a particular yard, building, prison complex, group of prisons, or even entire state. What this person says goes. Challenging his authority or otherwise disrespecting him isn't very wise. While a specific shot caller won't necessarily have defined authority over other races or gangs in the prison, depending on how numerous, vicious, and/or well connected his particular gang is, a particular shot caller could be the dominant boss. If you are in a prison of 3000 and 2500 of the inmates belong to your race or gang then the shot callers for other races/gangs probably don't want too many problems with you. Or vice versa, if your 500 out of 3000 are known to be unified and insanely hyperviolent, you could punch well above your weight in terms of prison power and influence.

Shot Caller examines the fall of California stockbroker Jacob Harlan (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau , Jaime Lannister from HBO's Game of Thrones) from naive yuppie and upstanding citizen into a prince of darkness. The film has a lot of flashbacks and flash forwards. I thought it had too many flashbacks. It made sense at the end for reasons I can't discuss here but in my opinion a traditional narrative would have been just as powerful. Physics hasn't given us the definitive answer for whether time travel into the past is possible. I think most people have wished that we could go in back in time to change a bad decision or otherwise alter something. Jacob certainly wishes he could have made better choices.

Jacob is buzzed after a dinner with his wife Kate (Lake Bell-severely underutilized) and their friends.  Someone else should be driving. Unfortunately Jacob is driving. Jacob runs a red light and causes an accident which kills his male friend in the back seat, who is hit head on by another vehicle. 

Jacob's lawyer advises him to take a plea deal. 

The evidence against Jacob is strong. A trial will cost Jacob and his family money they don't have. Winning prosecutors ask for longer sentences. Jacob takes the deal. Jacob will do just 16 months at a minimum security facility. That's no time, relatively speaking. Less money spent on lawyers is more money for Kate and their son Joshua.

The state either forgot about the "minimum security" condition or understands those words differently than Jacob does. At the intake jail Jacob and some of the other newbies are sexually harassed and taunted. That night one new prisoner who showed fear is gang-raped. The next morning the man sobs alone as other inmates go about their business as if nothing happened. 

That incident steels Jacob's determination. At the prison, a minor interaction with a Black inmate gives Jacob the opportunity to show he's no punk. The White prisoners look on approvingly. Eventually Jacob is recruited by Shotgun (Jon Bernthal) and the local shotcaller Bottles (Jeffrey Donovan) to join the white supremacist PEN1 group. He doesn't have to say yes but a White man who declines could be in for hard times. 

As Bottles patiently explains, every race sticks with their own. No exceptions. And gang members are all expected to put in work. No exceptions. As Jacob learns, this will include drug smuggling, beatings, and murders. Jacob becomes known as Money. He rises in the gang hierarchy. Unfortunately rising in the hierarchy requires one to commit certain acts which are not only illegal but also prone to being caught on camera. Jacob is convicted of another crime and transferred to a higher security prison. Jacob has nine years added to his sentence. Jacob asks Kate to stop visiting or writing. 

At the higher security prison Jacob is asked to join the Aryan Brotherhood by its shotcaller, an intelligent, direct, and intimidating  bearded fellow known as Beast (Holt McCallany). Upon parole a totally transformed Jacob has a job to do. 

Jacob's parole officer Ed Kutcher (Omari Hardwick) can sense that Jacob is smarter and more moral than he looks, even as Jacob does what he can to prove otherwise. Ed will revoke Jacob's parole in a minute if he learns about any wrongdoing though.

This was a movie which probably could have had 15-20 minutes cut off its running time without losing much in terms of story. I liked how the movie showed how prison/gang rules are used to restrict and eventually even eliminate individual choice. 

If there is a scheduled race riot and you are a member of a gang you had better be in the front lines. Even if you aren't a gang member if it jumps off between your group and another group, people from your group had better see you out there swinging. Because otherwise you're going to have a BIG problem. This is the third(?) movie that Waugh has done to show us that there's a problem in the penal system. This was a decent film.

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