ESCAPE PLAN (2013) Dir: Mikael Hafstrom

This year we've seen a film from both Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Bullet To The Head and The Last Stand and I reviewed both so I think it's only fitting that I review their first full collaborative effort, ESCAPE PLAN. Check out my review after the jump....

Written by Peter Osmond

From George W. Hill's 1930 film The Big House through San Quentin, Birdman Of Alcatraz, Brubaker, Midnight Express to Lock up, Death Warrant, Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and even TV show Prison Break, Prison set films have always garnered viewers. What is it about this setting that people enjoy? I can't rightly put my finger on it but I still find myself enjoying prison flicks and Ive seen quite a few. This year we get a new one to this sub-genre, Escape Plan (formally The Tomb). What's so special about this new prison film, well it's the first time that two heavy weights of action cinema are co-leads, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, finally after an almost 30 year cinema rivalry, these two, not counting the glorified cameo's in both Expendable films, finally go head to head, well in a way, and while Escape Plan is really nothing new, these two big guns really make the film worth watching.

The premise is pretty cool, Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a man who has broken out of 14 maximum security prisons. Now Breslin is not a criminal, breaking out of prison is his job, he gets hired to test the security buy staging a prison break and presenting the details of how this happened to the prisons authority. He co-runs a business with partner Lester Clark (Vincent D'Onofrio) and he's offered $5mil to escape from an off the books experimental prison before the plans can be submitted. Breslin agrees and along with his team, Amy Ryan and 50 Cent, arrive in New Orleans. Breslin is waiting to be picked up for transport to this new prison. However, when he picked up, he's tazered and beaten and has his tracker cut out of his arm. He wakes up in a see through cell, there is no escape, or is there? Inside he meets Rottmeyer, the go to guy for things you need, Rottmeyer, played by Schwarzenegger is an imposing figure but one that seems to keep to him self, he doesn't have a crew or a gang and finds himself drawn to Breslin. The Warden of the prison, played by Jim Caviezel is not the one he was told about, Breslin realises he's been set up and must escape with the help of Rottmeyer and find out who is responsible for setting him up.

We've seen this type of film countless times before. It bares a striking resemblance to Steven Seagal's Half Past Dead and owes a lot to Prison Break, but despite the familiarity, Escape Plan still manages to be it's own film. It's easy to be reminded of other prison flicks and films that contain prison scenes. John Woo's 1997 action film Face/Off contains another similar type of prison and Stuart Gordon's Fortress also sprang to mind while I was watching it, but what made the film enjoyable was the banter between Stallone and Schwarzenegger, like a 107 minute extended version of the church scene in the first Expendables film and it's really fun finally watching these two action icons acting together. Stallone does his “I can do this kind of role in my sleep” routine which is pretty cool but we've seen this kind of performance in everything from Lock Up, Assassins, Cobra, Rambo 4 and Driven, basically where Stallone mumbles the majority of his lines, but he's still fun to watch and the fact that both Arnie and Stallone are in their 60s is a marvel, I know Bronson was well into his 60s and still doing action flicks but not to the level of these guys.

I have to say that I was a huge fan of this years The Last Stand, I thought it was a great return to leading man action flick for Schwarzenegger even if at first he seemed to have forgotten how to act and some of his line delivery in Expendables 2 was a bit, well, poor but Schwarzenegger steals Escape Plan, his comic timing and one liners kill and when he grabs a mounted machine gun is a hell of a cool sight that reminded me of how awesome he was in Predator.

Jim Caviezel is suitably evil as the prison warden, but his performance comes across as almost identical to Kurtwood Smith's evil prison director Poe, as though he'd done all of his research by watching Fortress. But he's still pretty cool.

Luckily 50 cent is relegated to popping up a couple of times to swear at Vincent D'Ornofrio and then disappears again, Amy Ryan is underused and the most criminal underuse of an actor goes to Sam Neill who plays the prison doctor, such a shame because Neill brings a touch of class to almost everything he's in. The biggest fuck up comes in the form of Vinnie Jones who just gurns his way through the film as an angry prison guard. I used to like Jones in stuff like Snatch and Gone In Sixty Seconds but now he's just a joke.

Overall, Escape Plan bring nothing new to the prison sub-genre and does borrow a lot from other films and TV shows but I can excuse that because of the two main leads who make the film what it is, an enjoyable, action packed B-Movie that is ideal for a rainy popcorn fuelled sunday afternoon. It's not award winning, it's not clever, it's pure switch your brain off entertainment. It's flawed and unoriginal but my god did I have a blast watching it.