Released: October 2013
Director: Mikael Håfström
Run Time: 115 Minutes
Rated R
Cast:
Sylvester Stallone: Ray Breslin
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Rottmayer
Jim Caviezel: Hobbes
Faran Tahir: Javed
Amy Ryan: Abigail
Sam Neill: Dr. Kyrie
Vincent D’Onofrio: Lester Clark
Vinnie Jones: Drake
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson: Hush
There are a lot of movies about prison breaks: Count of Monte Cristo, Escape From Alcatraz, Shutter Island, The Shawshank Redemption and my two personal favorites: The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Great Escape. These are some of the best films in the genre, and they generally revolve around one plot point….escaping their prison. In some of these cases, the story revolves around one character who was falsely accused of a crime and plots to escape and get his revenge. The others involve a group of people who work together to find a way out. Some of the best prison break sequences are just a small part of the movie and can be very memorable. The jailbreak in John Woo’s Face/Off with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage is probably one of the best prison breaks I’ve seen in a movie. Now, take that sequence from Face/Off and throw in Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger and you have Escape Plan. Obviously there’s a bit more to the film than that, but if I had to sum up, that’s what you would get.
Opening in a prison somewhere in the United States, prisoner Ray Breslin is making his rounds in the prison planning his escape. Ray Breslin is actually a professional escape artist hired by the US prison system to find flaws in their prisons to keep prisoners from escaping. Later, he’s offered a job to try and escape a new prison designed to house the world’s worst people. After he’s agreed to the job, he’s violently abducted and transported to the new prison. The prison’s warden, Hobbes, is a sadistic individual with an equally vicious right-hand man, Drake. Meeting another prisoner, Rottmayer, Breslin realizes that he’s in serious trouble and needs to rely on his fellow prisoner to find his way out. The story isn’t really anything original. We’ve all seen this kind of film before. But this is the first time we’ve seen both Stallone and Schwarzenegger in a film together, right? Wrong. Schwarzenegger and Stallone first appeared together in The Expendables. Arnold had a cameo because he still in office at the time, but he had an expanded role in the sequels. It IS the first time that we’ve seen these two in prison break movie, however. So how does Escape Plan stack up against the other films I mentioned? The honest truth is that I wouldn’t even put it in my top 5.
I think part of the problem is even trying to compare this movie to other identical films in the genre. Escape Plan just isn’t even in the same league as something like The Great Escape. It wouldn’t be a fair comparison, actually. This movie treads the same path as some of those other films, but it isn’t nearly as refined. For instance, the main character surveys his surroundings and tries to pay attention to certain details. I think another issue with the movie is that the motivations for the characters are convoluted. Breslin says at one point he does what he does so he can keep dangerous people from breaking out of prisons, but it’s apparent there’s a very personal reason for it. It’s never truly explained. As for why Rottmayer is there? We really have no idea who he is or given a reasonable explanation for his incarceration. We know that Hobbes is a scumbag but it’s never explained who he works for or why he is the way he is. The movie leaves a lot of questions unanswered, at least for me.
For once, Stallone and Schwarzenegger are playing human beings. It’s kind of weird seeing Arnold with a goatee, but it seems to work for him. I think he needs to wear it more often. I think Schwarzenegger steals the show in this one, because he gets to ham it up to the nth degree, and it’s hilarious at times. Escape Plan has some pretty interesting names attached to it. You’ve got Jim Caviezel, who plays Hobbes. He’s an interesting actor. I like him in most of the stuff that I’ve seen him in. He’s got a knack for playing understated characters or characters that are not over-the-top. His portrayal of Hobbes IS menacing, but at times it can be a little humorous, but he’s not loud or off-the-wall crazy. He’s meticulous and deliberate. We’ve also got Sam Neill who plays the good doctor who got caught up in a serious situation. Sam Neill has always been a fantastic actor, and seeing him play a character like this is almost unusual. While he’s not a primary character, he does become important later on, and Neill gives the character a real sense of humanity. Vincent D’Onofrio plays the head of the company that Stallone’s character works for. D’Onofrio always gives his characters interesting quirks. We see early on that Lester Clark may be a bit of an OCD/germaphobe-type person just be some of the stuff that he does. I wouldn’t be surprised if D’Onofrio improvised some of that stuff on the spot. The one cast member that I was surprised at was Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. This isn’t the first time a rapper has jumped from music to acting. Ice Cube and Ice-T are some of the more well-known actors who used to be musicians. Ice-T actually wound up being a pretty good actor, so it is possible for a successful transition. Curtis Jackson doesn’t strike me as bad actor, he really doesn’t. He plays the “nerd” of the movie so to speak, but he’s not terrible.
With the big action names attached to Escape Plan, you would expect to see a lot of action, right? Wrong. This is not that kind of movie. Yes, it does have action in it, but most of it doesn’t really happen until towards the end of the movie. Unlike Sabotage, Escape Plan isn’t overly bloody. It’s definitely violent, but it’s not excessive. Seeing a movie like this showing that kind of restraint is kind of refreshing, actually. There’s a number of downsides to this film, some of which I’ve already mentioned. The one that I didn’t mention was Vinnie Jones. He always plays the same kind of character: Tough, brooding, swears a lot, and is extremely violent. He’s good at it, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t seem like he’s got that much range as an actor. The music in Escape Plan comes across as way too much and too grandiose. It’s just way over-the-top and doesn’t suit this type of film. I would have to say that Escape Plan is a pretty middle-of-the-road movie. It’s not bad, but it’s not terribly good either. The movie just follows too much in the footsteps of greater films, and doesn’t really do enough to make it unique. This one is sentenced to 7/10. It’s not bad enough to get solitary confinement, though.