Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Cell 211 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov February 7, 2012

Winner of eight Goya Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor, Spanish director Daniel Monzón's "Celda 211" a.k.a. "Cell 211" arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Studio Canal. The supplemental features on the disc include a video interview with director Daniel Monzón and making of featurette. In Spanish, with imposed English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

Malamadre

The opening scene is incredibly disturbing - in a dark and dirty cell, Cell 211, an inmate slowly slits his wrists and then quietly dies. Much later on, it is revealed who the man is and why he had to die.

In approximately twenty four hours, Juan (Alberto Ammann) will start working again. He is going to be a guard in a maximum security prison somewhere on the outskirts of a big Spanish city. Both he and his pregnant wife (Marta Etura, Your Next Life) agree that this isn’t a great job, but both are also convinced that it should be a lot better than his previous job - stocking meat in a slaughterhouse. In fact, Juan is so excited to have it that he has decided to report a day early and see if some of his future colleagues will be willing to give him a tour of the prison.

Two guards agree to quickly show Juan what he will be doing soon. During the tour, he is knocked unconscious in an accident, and one of the guards rushes him to the empty Cell 211. Almost immediately after that, a violent riot breaks out and the guards are forced to run for their lives.

Juan is abandoned in Cell 211.

The inmates take over the prison. They are led by Malamadre (Luis Tosar, Mondays In The Sun, Take My Eyes), a brutal man who has managed to organize the various rivaling gangs. When Juan wakes up, he immediately realizes what has happened and pretends to be an inmate.

The majority of the inmates are ready to die - because many have no chance of getting parole and because many are already slowly dying of AIDS. Juan realizes how serious the situation is and makes a few important suggestions that impress Malamadre. Some of his best men, however, are not ready to trust Juan because he is new and untested.

A SWAT team arrives in the prison. Later on, the government also sends a negotiator to strike a deal with Malamadre’s men after riots break out in other prisons around the country. The Basque government also takes a side in the conflict.

Winner of eight Goya Awards (the Spanish Oscars), including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor (Tosar), Daniel Monzón’s Cell 211 is an impressive Spanish drama that does what few films nowadays do – it constantly surprises. It is also uncompromisingly brutal and free of moralistic preaching, which most similarly themed films are typically loaded with.

The what-if scenarios are outstanding. A few concern Juan, but there are other much more complicated scenarios to ponder as well. The one concerning the Basque separatists is particularly interesting. Additionally, there are some excellent, very credible character transformations.

The cast is fantastic. Tosar’s performance rivals arguably his best – the abusive husband in Icíar Bollaín’s Take My Eyes. Ammann, obviously an actor with a very bright future, is also uncharacteristically good for a newcomer as the young man who accidentally enters a world where life is cheaper than a plate of cooked shrimp.

Cell 211 was lensed by cinematographer Carles Gusi, who has previously collaborated with Julio Medem (Vacas) and Santiago Segura (Torrente, the Dumb Arm of the Law).

Cell 211 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080/50i transfer, Cell 211 arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Studio Canal.

Despite the fact that the high-definition transfer is interlaced, the quality of the presentation is very good. Detail is consistently excellent, clarity very pleasing, and contrast levels notably stable. The color-scheme also favors lush organic colors. These very strong basics obviously have plenty to do with the fact that the film was shot with the Red One Camera, which is I wonder what master Studio Canal had to work with. Regardless, while viewing the film I could not spot any distracting motion-judder, which is why I must speculate that if a progressive transfer was available it would not have looked any better, or at least not substantially better for anyone to notice a difference. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked' Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

Cell 211 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Spanish LPCM 2.0. For the record, Studio Canal have provided imposed (they cannot be turned off) English subtitles for the main feature.

The Spanish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track impresses during selected sequences, such as the one where the SWAT team clashes with the inmates, but overall it won't test the muscles of your audio system. In fact, its range of nuanced dynamics is rather limited. This is not to say, however, that the sound lacks depth; rather that the film, which was shot in a very specific way and often feels like a documentary, has an organic sound design that does not favor a wide range of nuanced dynamics. For the record, there are no sync issues or audio dropouts to report in this review. The English translation is very good.

Cell 211 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview - in this video interview, director Daniel Monzón discusses how Cell 211 came to exist, and specifically the adaptation of Francisco Pérez Gandul's novel, the film's intended documentary look (many of the characters in the film are played by real inmates), the cinematography, the key themes in the film, etc. In English, not subtitled. (22 min, 1080/50i).

• Making of Cell 211 - excellent featurette focusing on the production history of Cell 211. The featurette contains plenty of comments from director Daniel Monzón, actors Luis Tosar, Manuel Moron, Marta Etura, etc. In Spanish, with imposed English subtitles. (27 min, 1080/50i).

Cell 211 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Daniel Monzón's Cell 211 is a tough prison drama that reminded me of John Frankenheimer's Against the Wall. However, Cell 211 is far grittier, far more realistic, and much better acted. The eight Goya Awards that the film earned are well-deserved. Studio Canal's Blu-ray release looks and sounds good. RECOMMENDED.