4/21/2014

"Many pray to get out. He charges"

Title: Escape Plan 
Year: 2013 
Genre: Action, Mystery, Thriller 
Director: Mikael Håfström 
Writer: Miles Chapman (screenplay), Jason Keller (written by), Miles Chapman (story) 
Runtime: 115min 
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Faran Tahir, Amy Ryan, Sam Neil, Vincent D' Onofrio, 50 Cent 
Prod: Summit Entertainment, Emmett / Furla Films, Mark Canton Productions, Envision Entertainment, Boies / Schiller Film Group, Atmosphere Entertainment MM 
Budget: $50 millions approx. 

If there´s something that audiences like is to have an innocent man, but witty and with tons of patience, trying to escape from confinement. It becomes even nicer if he´s yet to deal with a despicable jail staff plus a corrupt warden. 
Escape Plan has made use of this old formula, although adapting it to an action movie, using two of the toughest guys in the genre. 
The opening minutes has us looking at an inmate, clearly willing to escape. Something he will accomplish by doing his thing and with help from the outside, but for then giving himself up again. 
Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) has actually got nothing, to be called a criminal. A security expert and a sort of Houdini, he dedicates to seek for flaws in the prison system. Always with Hush (50 Cent) and Abigail (Amy Ryan) in his team, plus his three golden rules: to know the layout, understand the routine and have help from the outside or inside. Breslin is a genius escapist, about to take an ugly job, with variations he doesn´t know and where the only thing he´s got clear is that the character he is to play is terrorist Anthony Portos. 
Unexpectedly kidnapped, Breslin is taken to his new destination under sedation, not been able to see where he is going, to communicate it, and leaving his teammates with their hands tied. For the first time, Breslin must work in the dark. 
Escape Plan takes us to a high-tech prison with transparent cells, masked guards, cameras everywhere and even motion sensors. How to get out? I wonder if Harry Houdini would have known. 
Having just got in, Bresil receives the valuable advice "make friends", just before being saved by inmate Rottmayer, his "friend", when he was about to be attacked by thugs. 
The former governor of California, Arnold Schawrzenegger, is who plays this Rottmayer, a prisoner who is too nice, reliable and cooperative, after just having introduced himself, and who ends up making of the escape, lot more viable than what we have hoped it to be. As a matter of fact, when it is finally explained why he´s joined the newcomer, his presence on screen ends up resulting very forced. Arnold contributes so that the escape isn´t for Breslin, the big challenge we had initially expected. I believe I say it all when I add that without Arnold, the action would have taken too long to be waited. 
But at no time Escape Plan intends to be a realistic drama, or to deepen on the human bond, when deprived from freedom. To what it appeals is to entertain, but in the most basic sense. If Breslin hadn´t counted on with any of his rules, his level of planning would have been much higher, and the plot, more compelling. Nor can be said that the jail is so unbreakable, when there´s no one to check the inmates, foreign objects detectors or serious guards who are not distracted so easy. 
When action´s arrived, dozens of highly trained guards are unable to hit their targets, while Breslin or Javed (Faran Tahir), another breakaway companion have no inconvenient doing it, as if they were suddenly shooting experts.
To complete this hostile scenario is that Hobbes appears (Jim Caviezel) as the corrupt warden who cares nothing about his prisoners, and whose not lacking the desire to torment them. It is probably even necessary to be like this, as to run such a place. 
If building-up is what we don´t see much, action we do see and in good quantity. From a small fist fight between Stallone and Schwarzenegger, to a heads up with Drake (Vinnie Jones), a sadistic guard full of hatred. 
Escape Plan is ideal for the fans of brute strength, trickery and gunfire. If what we wanted instead, was a drama with human suffering, and showing us what living unfairly in confinement is it like, Frank Darabont´s Shawshank Redemption (1994) would have been a much better option. 

My rating: 6/10


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