Breakout (1975)

Truly Dreadful Film

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Breakout is a cool Charles Bronson action film. Bronson plays a mechanic who is hired by a woman to rescue an American who is serving time in a Mexican prison. Robert Duvall, John Huston (in one or two scenes) and Randy Quaid are the male supporting cast. Jill Ireland and Sheree North are the sex objects to be groped and shared by the men (Bronson is involved in two love triangles). The title scene set to a playful score by Jerry Goldsmith is very impressive. But then the film slows down with Jill Ireland (who plays the jailed Robert Duvall's wife) trying to save her husband. But things pick up after the beer guzzling Bronson makes an appearance. The action scenes with the helicopter were good but not spectacular. Mexicans are portrayed as complete idiots. The actor who played Bronson's helicopter coach and the scenes with him and Bronson were amusing. So were the scenes with Bronson and Shirlee North's husband. Tarantino might have borrowed the coffin scene in KILL BILL 2 from this film and not SPOORLOOS as widely believed.The ending was very very violent with an airplane smashing into the villain who was fighting with Bronson on the tarmac.People in the 70s could look forward to watching cool, badass and provocative action films like Breakout. We are reduced to watching SPIDERMAN and AVENGERS. I bet this film looks great on Blu ray. The DVD I watched was just about OK in terms of picture quality.(7/10)

BREAKOUT isn't bad for what it is: a typically tough '70s-era thriller, with innocent man Robert Duvall banged up south of the border and tough pilot Charlie Bronson the only guy with a chance of getting him out. It's a film shot through with style and character, and yet as a thriller, it's not particularly thrilling. As prison breakout movies go, this lacks almost entirely all of the suspense from something like ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ and it does feel plodding and overlong in places.Still, the joy of watching Bronson at the height of his tough guy fame makes this worthwhile, and the addition of further interesting cast members like Duvall, Sheree North, Randy Quaid and Jill Ireland, only adds to that watchability. And it does finally start to pick up right at the end, including a truly jaw-dropping special effect involving a plane that you wonder how they managed to get past the censors. A win, then, for director Tom Gries, but the various scriptwriters needed to tighten things further to make this a true great.

I liked this movie when I saw it when it first came out, and it wasn't anything special, or so I thought, but when I compare it to most of the movies I've seen lately, it, along with so many of the action type movies, were special, and so much better than most of the crap I've seen over the last 10 years or so. I watched Mr. Majestyk a few nights ago, it's always been one of my favorite Bronson movies, and this one was right up there too. The movies anymore seem to either be full of special effects with no story, or inferior rehashes of older better movies. What point is there of remaking old non special effect movies? Every time they do it, it's almost always a failure. Look at "The Getaway", the 1972 one was great, just for the casting alone (Ali Mcgraw doesn't count, she's just bad in everything), but the remake was just horrible. It's not like I hate all movies made now, but a lot of them are really just not done very well at all, story wise.

Recently I saw BREAKOUT again (I think the 3rd time in app. 20 years) and I liked it even more than I did remember! It's a really pleasant lightweight action-"comedy" and it shows a side of CHUCK, which many people have forgotten over the years: that he's a humorous guy and loves a smile once in a while.When CHUCK made this one, he was the hottest ticket on earth. DEATH WISH I, the movie which defined the 70ies (alongside with THE GODFATHER), had drawn lines in front of cinemas and made millions and millions around the globe and the one he did right after that box-office smash was BREAKOUT. His status as # 1 box-office star also shows in this perfectly made movie, it has one of the best camera-works in any Bronson-movie and the supporting cast (Bob Duvall, John Huston, Randy Quaid, ...) is stellar and does a wonderful job, too. The music is composed by Jerry Goldsmith, who did quite a number of other scores for Bronson-movies, and Goldsmith is at the peak of his creative powers in the early to mid-70ies. The no-nonsense direction is delivered by veteran-director Tom GRIES, who made BREAKHEART PASS with CHUCK a little later (another nice one, but not as good as this movie).Of course the story is nothing special, just another prison-flight-movie, but that's not the point. Dismissed as lightweight entertainment, critics in the 70ies (when great action-pics were not uncommon, contrary to today) completely overlooked the above achievements and turned down the wonderful good-natured performance CHUCK delivers in this one.Just take the scene, in which nose-up Jille IRELAND arrives at his lot, Randy Quaid is just burning stinking fish (!) and a dirty Bronson with a smile (and a worthless cheque) engages in truly funny dialogue with his real-life wife. BREAKOUT has many such moments and the action scenes, which come in at a perfect timing, are also well-staged and well-delivered.Looking at this movie, one can't resent the idea that everybody on the set must have had a great time and any audience will have the same great time watching CHUCK smile and deliver a truly beautiful performance while kicking ass only once in a while in this rather untypical Bronson-movie.