Shot Caller

It starts with a successful stockbroker causing a fatal crash while drunk and continues with him working his way into a gang hierarchy to survive prison. The timeline is deliberately broken, so you never see who he was outside before you know who he is inside. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays it through a physical transformation that leaves nothing of Jaime Lannister behind. Director Ric Roman Waugh came up as a stuntman and built the prison mechanics not from genre but from working with real inmates and former inmates. Jon Bernthal, Lake Bell and Holt McCallany fill out the cast. The production had a rough road. Shooting began in Albuquerque and Santa Fe on 26 May 2015, then Relativity Media filed for bankruptcy and the film sat on a shelf. Saban Films only picked up US rights in 2017, and a limited theatrical and VOD release brought in roughly 3.4 million dollars domestically. Who it is for: viewers who like prison drama and slow moral collapse. Who it is not for: anyone put off by violence and racist gang iconography, which the film shows with documentary coldness.