Two men in prison looking in a mirror in Jailbroken 2026 film review

Locked in a jail cell, armed with an illegal cell phone, and trying to stop a kidnapping and murder– that’s the situation in which Joe (Bryan Larkin) finds himself in Jailbroken (2026), directed by Vasily Chuprina. With only three days left on his sentence, Joe is alone in his cell, sneaking calls to old friends, planning a party to celebrate his release. He’s been serving time on behalf of the man he worked for, another gangster named Sandy. He’s unexpectedly joined by a new bunkmate, Naz (Armin Karima), who seems young and nervous. Naz is in for cyber crimes, a very different world from Joe’s. While on a call, Joe hears his wife and child kidnapped in the background, and he has to think quickly to try and save them.

Jailbroken has an extremely small cast, and almost every scene relies on Larkin’s and Karima’s strong performances. Joe is tough but scared for his family, and he has the street smarts and connections to scrape together a crew on the outside to try and save them. As he desperately makes calls, he quickly realises how few friends he actually has on the outside. Naz vacillates between trying to hide quietly, or nervously help brainstorm with Joe. Naz offers his expertise in predicting people’s motivations and actions, a skill he honed in his phishing schemes. The prison guards are cruel and enjoy abusing their power, whilst looking for ways to make life hard for Joe’s last few days. Each member of the small cast plays their part expertly to ratchet the tension up throughout the film.

The unique draw of Jailbroken is the locked-room setting. The entire story takes place in the jail cell: a concrete, drab, lonely room, which only feels more and more hopeless as Joe desperately tries to solve his awful problem from inside those walls. A frosted windowpane shows the audience the passage of time – at the beginning of the film, Joe is excitedly making calls and working out with sunlight streaming in. As time passes, and Joe feels dread settling in, the day darkens, finishing the film when there is no light at all but the depressing fluorescent in the cell. There’s nowhere to hide from his troubles, and hardly anywhere to hide his contraband cellphone from the guards. Joe’s only decorations are a small photo of his wife and son, and a poster of the notorious gangster Al Capone, inspiration for the kind of criminal Joe fancies himself.

Like the analogy of a frog in a boiling pot of water, the tension steadily builds upon itself throughout the film, until the climatic ending, when the viewer can hardly believe that just eighty minutes ago Joe was flying high on his upcoming freedom. Jailbroken will keep the audience guessing, wondering who they can trust, and what exactly is going on within, and outside the prison cell.

Jailbroken will have its world premiere at FrightFest Glasgow on 5 March!