Escape Plan review

• 14th Oct 2013

After working together for the first time in the two Expendables films in recent years, Escape Plan brings the two of the most iconic action heroes of all time, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger together, this time for a slightly more serious action thriller. The film is directed by Mikael Håfström, best known for his 2007 film adaption of Stephen King’s 1408 and the 2011 exorcism film The Rite.

Stallone plays Ray Breslin, an expert at prison security who makes his living by breaking out of maximum security prisons as a consultant for the US Government. Breslin, an ex lawyer,  is not only a tough guy who can obviously take care of himself inside but also an intelligent, super perceptive  and resourceful modern day McGyver who can build tools and weapons from pretty much nothing. If those skills were not enough, he also has a small team on the outside including a computer expert played by 50 Cent.

After an initial exhibition of Breslin’s skills, his team is offered a new job breaking out of a new privately owned prison for very dangerous terrorists and other prisoners that the Government would like to disappear from their prison system. The team is given no information of the location or the type of prison but the money being good they decide to take it on despite it breaking their internal own rules for safety. As it happens, this ends up being a bad idea and Breslin finds himself imprisoned for real at ‘the Tomb’, a prison designed by his own guidelines to make it inescapable with all communication to his team cut.

Jim Caviezel plays Hobbs, the sadistic prison warden and all around clichéd  action film bad guy and Vinny Jones the head prison guard Drake, who is.. well, Vinny Jones as usual. These two run this mysterious prison with seemingly no escape or hope of release. Their  clients represent  not only the USA but other countries as well as drug cartels and anyone who can afford to imprison someone in there. At the prison, Breslin is quickly befriended by Schwarzenegger’s character Swan Rottmayer, who is insistent on helping Breslin escape in exchange for his own freedom.

Arnie’s character offers a lot of laughs in  the film with memorable lines playing against the serious Stallone and the other desperate and broken inmates. The plot after this follows the planning and various attempts the men make to escape with help from other prisoners as well as the prison’s doctor played by Sam Neill.

All in all, Escape Plan is a very enjoyable film which shows the two action stars in their 60s in more intelligent roles but still offering plenty of the action that they are known for. The plot is outlandish and the character of Breslin in particular doesn’t come up as particularly believable, but these are hardly criticisms that aren’t common to most action films.  Arnie’s Rottmayer steals the show with a character that comes out as wise but slightly unhinged offering the required amount of comedy to the otherwise serious film.

The film is very well paced and never gets boring, but is not all action either. At under two hours it is not too long either and therefore keeps attention well, slowly revealing the secrets and obstacles that lay between the men and their freedom. It might not be a classic of the genre, but it is a good man-film that deserves its place in both of these stars’ long resumes.

Marko Hyypia