Summary
Bosco does a decent enough job of showing a small glimpse of what life in such a high-security facility looks like.
Peacock’s drama thriller Bosco tells the true story of Quawntay Adams and his remarkable escape from a maximum security prison. First-time director Nicholas Manuel Pino co-wrote the script with Adams himself, who was also involved in its production. The film stars Aubrey Joseph in the titular role.
The movie opens in 1985 with protagonist Quawntay Adams, known as Bosco, as a child receiving some tough advice from his father about life on the streets. As a young man, Bosco enters a maximum security prison where he’s meant to spend the next 35 years of his life on a marijuana charge.
Most of the film takes place between the four grey and depressing walls of Bosco’s cell, where he’s struggling to maintain his sanity within the facility’s horrid conditions. The prison is run by a sadistic Hunt (Thomas Jane), who, along with his right-hand guard Ramos (Theo Rossi), never misses an opportunity to humiliate the inmates and remind them how low they rank on the totem pole. Prison scenes are intertwined with flashbacks that give audiences further context into Bosco’s upbringing by his mother, who tried to shield the boy from his criminal father’s influence.
The young man starts forming a plan to escape the facility as soon as he learns about his girlfriend’s pregnancy. Part of this plan involves Tammy (Nikki Blonsky), a young woman who placed a Lonely Hearts ad in the paper. Bosco’s next cell neighbor, Bull (John Lewis), found the listing and encouraged him to call her. Months later, head over heels Tammy agrees to help him escape.
There’s a lot to love about this title. It tells a worthwhile story while keeping most of the narrative inside the four walls of Bosco’s jail cell. The flashbacks serve to add depth to his character, while the prison scenes do a good job of showing snippets of what life looks like in such a restrictive environment.
Some of the best moments in the movie are the interactions between our protagonist and his neighbor, Bull. While not exactly friends, there’s a camaraderie that forms between the men, and their dialogue is as compelling as it is humorous.
It’s hard to imagine the inner turmoil of a young man who is facing more than three decades of incarceration on a non-violent drug offense. For most of Bosco, we get to see the protagonists’s bleak yet monotonous existence. This, however, is not a tedious film.
For a first-time director, Nicholas Manuel Pino does an impressive job at telling this remarkable story (which happens to have a strong real-life basis). The film doesn’t shy away from grit and violence, but it’s ultimately a character-driven and very human tale about the meaning of freedom.
Bosco is a well-written and superbly acted feature about one man’s resilience and ultimate ingenuity in the face of adversity. It’s well-paced and even makes good use of voice-overs, which sound like the protagonist’s inner thoughts rather than the exposition-dumping narration is usually used for.
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