In his late teens, Andrej is a handful: smoking, drinking, doing drugs etc. After he assaults a girl with whom he can not 'get it up', he is sent to a reform school where the ineffectual bearded social workers who are supposed to run the place are cowed by the inmates, whose ringleader is Zele, a hard-partying, sexually-ambiguous bully-boy. Andrej, attracted to Zele, is eager to please him; it can only end in tears.
To anyone who has seen any prison/reform school film, there is nothing really new about this except a) it is set in Slovenia and b) there is no shower-based male rape scene. Apart from that, plotting is strictly by-the-numbers: Andrej is at first ostracised by the other boys but gradually wins their acceptance; there's the ultimate betrayal; and Andrej's pet rat goes the way of almost all animals who have the misfortune to find themselves in this kind of production.
Fans of husky East European boys will be pleased by the numerous shirtless scenes (although may be disappointed that that is pretty much all that is on display, skin-wise). The roles do not stretch the young actors, all of whom are simply required to play the tough guy, but as Andrej, Matej Zemljic's facial reaction when he opens a shoebox containing a nasty surprise is pretty effective. (Unfortunately IMDb does now allow the correct spelling of Matej's surname!)
A bit like a US network TV version of a much tougher film - there is not even much swearing! - but worth seeing once. I saw it at the 2018 London Film Festival.
To anyone who has seen any prison/reform school film, there is nothing really new about this except a) it is set in Slovenia and b) there is no shower-based male rape scene. Apart from that, plotting is strictly by-the-numbers: Andrej is at first ostracised by the other boys but gradually wins their acceptance; there's the ultimate betrayal; and Andrej's pet rat goes the way of almost all animals who have the misfortune to find themselves in this kind of production.
Fans of husky East European boys will be pleased by the numerous shirtless scenes (although may be disappointed that that is pretty much all that is on display, skin-wise). The roles do not stretch the young actors, all of whom are simply required to play the tough guy, but as Andrej, Matej Zemljic's facial reaction when he opens a shoebox containing a nasty surprise is pretty effective. (Unfortunately IMDb does now allow the correct spelling of Matej's surname!)
A bit like a US network TV version of a much tougher film - there is not even much swearing! - but worth seeing once. I saw it at the 2018 London Film Festival.