Review of Animal Factory (2000) by Xgary X — 25 May 2010

Directed by Steve Buscemi, Animal Factory is a tough prison drama following young convict Edward Furlong as he is taught the ropes of life behind bars by institutionalized inmate Willem Dafoe. Its lack of either melodrama or sensationalism is admirable, and solid writing and good performances for the most part make this a worthy and interesting window onto the ins and outs of prison existence.

Willem Dafoe and Danny Trejo are completely believable as the two hard bitten convicts who take Furlong under their wing. The message is that imprisonment may just mean that otherwise good kids who have made a mistake will be transformed into career criminals if they are surrounded by men who will do nothing but take advantage of them or teach them nothing but the "tricks of the trade".

Unfortunately the weak link in the performance chain is Furlong himself, who doesn't really capture the transformation of character to get the point across. I also felt the ending was a little bit of anti-climax, but as a whole it's one of the better prison films I've seen and well worth a look for its more realistic approach .