Brian Cox stars as a Frank Perry, an institutionalized convict whose served fourteen years of his life sentence. He has adjusted to prison life, that is until he learns that his daughter is seriously ill forcing him to concoct a plan to escape. The Escapist is a rather average prison film which is elevated by the talent involved. While Damian Lewis and Joseph Fiennes, among others, do strong work in their respective roles as various inmates which Frank Perry recruits, the script unintentionally creates a wall between the film and the audience, feeling at times like the actors are playing a role. The early part of the film does a solid job of setting up the world, as many of the men which Frank must work with are not by choice. Structurally the film is constructed like a puzzle. opening with the onset of the heist and constantly jumping between the present, the escape, and the past, where we witness the planning of the heist and all the details which took place. One thing that this film does extremely well is the sound design, which really aided in constructing this world and even helping with pacing; the score is very Carpenter-esque which is a big plus. The Escapist s a solid film but it's nothing I haven't seen done before and better, in other prison films. Films like Le Trou, Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, R, Dogpound, Starred Up, etc really do a far greater job at presenting what feels like a genuine horrific setting, feeling much more geniune and not like a movie. I think its the fractured narrative that actually hurts the film in this way, as the audience spends so much time trying to keep up that they are never given the time to really digest the setting and live in the moment. There are some things to definitely admire about the film, but ultimately The Escapist comes undone by the filmmakers trying to do too much in attempting to have both a psychological drama and an escape film, with not enough focus on either aspect.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
|