cinemattraction

If there is any cinematic story that has been so relentlessly beaten with the cliché stick that it now lingers on the critical list, then it must be the prison movie. The history of film is awash with claustrophobic escape tunnels, sadistic warders and spontaneously erupting canteen riots. It is something of a relief, then, to report that first-time feature director Rupert Wyatt has managed to pump new life and a great deal of style into a tired genre. The Escapist is a tautly paced, cleverly scripted and generally exciting thriller.

That is not to say that Wyatt has abandoned archetypes altogether. A glance at the film’s synopsis shows that many standbys are present and correct. There is the old lag who has seen it all – played by the magnificent Brian Cox – the innocent new boy (Dominic Cooper) who is fresh meat for the resident psychopath (Steven Macintosh) and the prison king pin (Damien Lewis). There is a brutal boxing match, where more than honor is at stake and a shower rape scene which is thankfully left mainly to the imagination. Of course, there is the well-planned escape where participants are chosen solely on the skills they can bring to the table. A mere desire to get out is not enough; but if you possess an apparent ability to walk through walls or an intricate knowledge of the local sewer system, then you are most definitely in.

The architect of the plan in The Escapist is a lifer named Frank Perry (Cox) who, after 14 years of getting nothing in the post but return-to-senders, finally receives news of his family – none of which is good. His daughter lies close to death following a drugs overdose and Frank, suddenly reminded that “there is something else,” becomes determined to bust out and see his child before it is too late. So he sets about assembling the team that might make freedom a reality.

The film switches back and forth between the slowly hatching plan and the frenetic jail break itself which involves tunneling out through a laundry room (insert your own “clean getaway” joke here) and crawling through a few miles of sewer pipe before finally emerging in a disused part of the London Underground system. This two-strand approach to the plot means that if the film is ever in danger of becoming staid, it can suddenly crank up the action and reclaim the viewer’s attention – a switch in pace signaled by a sudden burst of Benjamin Wallfisch’s stirring music score .

The film’s core of originality lies in its overall appearance which leans heavily towards the dystopian. In fact, the elements which comprise the look of the film – from the unnatural tungsten lighting to the futuristic architecture of the location used (Kilmainham jail in Ireland) – create an environment which resembles not so much a prison as a living purgatory. The inmates are so cut off from the outside world that they have lost their sense of reality and identity. “Outside,” Perry informs Rizza, the prison crime king, “you don’t exist.”

The film almost enters the realm of the fantastical when the escape party find themselves in a cavernous sewer and a deserted tube line that has not seen a passenger since the Blitz. In this regard, The Escapist has its antecedents, one could mention the television series Oz or the floating prison scenes in Face/Off perhaps, but few have succeeded so well in creating such a metaphysical portrayal of incarceration and blessed release. The film’s final twist has also been tried before but will probably come as a surprise to most viewers and at least, means that the audience will need to reassess all that they have seen in the previous 90 minutes.

It is always refreshing to see a British film take on Hollywood at its own game and, by adding the more cerebral elements that mainstream films tend to forego, beat it wholesale. Let’s hope The Escapist finds the audience it deserves on its initial release (no pun intended) but even if it flops, it is accomplished and different enough to become something of a cult at a later date.

© 2008 Alan Diment. All rights reserved.

Filed under Reviews