The Escapist (2008)

the audience applauded

Sadly Over-hyped

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I am usually a big fan of prison movies, but not this one. It was too unrelentingly dark and depressing for my tastes. Even prison has uplifting moments. Between the bad sound, the unfamiliar slang and the strong accents, I often found it very difficult to make out exactly what was going on. The lead - Brian Cox - did a good job, but the main bad guy - Damian Lewis - was too clean-cut and just did not fit the part (although I love him in Homeland). The whole drug factory in prison making a non-existent drug just seemed silly to me. There is no way that one would have the privacy to go through all the steps that it took to make it. The premise of an experienced middle-aged convict breaking out of prison because his daughter is a junkie seemed stupid too. What would he be able to do about it when on the run from the police? A lot of people seem to like this film, but I am not one of them.

Rupert Wyatt recently became famous for "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", but a few years earlier, he directed this movie about a man desperate to break out of prison. Brian Cox plays an inmate in an English prison who learns that his daughter is ill, and so he enlists some fellow inmates to help him escape."The Escapist" is half flashback. Some scenes focus on the man's life inside the jail and half on the jailbreak. And man, those are some intense scenes. More so, I'd say, than the jail scenes. But all in all, this amounts to a very fine movie. Granted, I wouldn't equate it with "The Shawshank Redemption" or anything, but still a good piece of work. I recommend it.I notice that the movie got filmed in Kilmainham Gaol. My parents recently went to Ireland and toured that jail.

An harrowing, gritty, taut, tense, thrilling prison break/thriller that will captivate you until the shocking, bittersweet conclusion. The film was atmospheric and gloomy and the performances were solid but not showy and it did a good job keeping you in suspense. It never reaches to great lengths and it wont stay in your memory forever but this is probably the best prison movie I've seen since The Last Castle and It's better than most movies of its kind but it just wasn't that theatrical or amazing as I thought it would be. Overall this prison break movie has an heart and a soul and has an involving story and characters to root for and was quite an jarring experience but frustrating. Recommended! More of a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

A marvellous film, as tightly handled as Damian Lewis' t-shirt. The film is told in two narratives prior to and during a break out of a prison, woven together with the snug inevitability of a zip. Consequently there are not one but two big twists, neither of which did I see coming. Bravo.This in itself is plenty to recommend the film, but here's some further detail. The British cast is entirely brilliant. Brian Cox, naturally, but I also believed Joe Fiennes' scrawny thuggishness and, though an outsider in so many ways, Seu Jorge fits his role (and into the ensemble) seamlessly. The film's well designed and shot so that the prison seems genuinely rough. Set pieces do not grandstand, they simply exist within the prison.My one disappointment was in the sound design which successfully submerges a great deal of the dialogue. I understand that we're in an extended period in which 'acoustically naturalised' dialogue is fashionable but this was really bad. Nonetheless there was too much about this film - everything else, in fact - that made it utterly gripping despite such shortcomings. 8/10