Ghosted Review

Paul (Compston), is a young convict who is transferred to a new prison and begins to mix with the wrong crowd, led by the violent and unpredictable Clay (Parkinson). Watching over the young man with a personal concern is Jack (Lynch), a benevolent prisoner nearing the end of his sentence, who, having lost his own young son, takes a fatherly responsibility for Paul. Thus begins a tug of war for the well-being of Paul’s very soul.

Ghosted is not a great film. Actually it’s barely approaching half-decent. First and foremost in its litany of problems is the fact that it is relentlessly dull. Even the ‘exciting bits’ where ‘stuff happens’ are entirely predictable and thus boring. And even if it were not rigidly ticking off every prison drama cliché in the Big Book of Prison Drama Clichés (Penguin, £5.99), the events in the film are so clearly signposted as ‘about to happen’ (‘that guy’s gonna get stabbed. Just watch. Any second now… Boom! Told you’), that if you can’t see them coming, you’re probably not road-safe.

The film retains some dignity in the okay-ish performances its three leads give, but it’s hard to appreciate whether or not they really are that good given that everyone in the film mumbles so much it renders about half of the dialogue unintelligible. It could just be the sound mix on the film, but honestly, if I feel I have to draw attention to how bad the frigging sound mix is, that should surely be indicative enough of how unworthy this film is of your time.

The ending is what really lets the film down badly though. There’s a pretty obvious twist that turns the film from simply boring into actively stupid, which is a shame really, as my opinion similarly twisted from indifference to annoyance.

It doesn’t make me feel good to criticise a low-budget, independent film, made with what I’m sure were the right intentions, but I have to be honest: it would be wrong to recommend Ghosted to anyone without a fairly pathological obsession with seeing every prison drama ever made. There are of course many worse films you could be see, but that’s far from an endorsement. The blame must be attributed to writer-director Craig Viveiros (given neither the writing or the direction are any good) and I sincerely hope his upcoming film, Lost in Italy, is a vast improvement.