Offender – review

Set against the topical background of the 2011 riots, Offender has the not unfamiliar plot of a man getting himself sent to jail in order to exact vengeance on some incarcerated criminals. In this case, a London teenager infiltrates a young offenders' institution to track down the gang who violently assaulted his pregnant girlfriend to prevent her giving evidence in a murder trial. The detail is realistic and it's a decent enough genre piece. But unlike its acknowledged model, Alan Clarke's Scum , the 1979 movie that launched Ray Winstone's career, Offender has little revealing or useful to say about the appalling conditions in juvenile prisons.