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| Speed Racer | 8/10 |
| The Fall | 8/10 |
| Then She Found Me | 7/10 |
| Speed Racer | 8/10 |
Sundance Review: The Escapist
January 23, 2008
by Alex Billington
- US Release Date: Sundance Film Festival 2008
- Genre: Drama, Thriller
- Running Time: 105 minutes
- Directed by: Rupert Wyatt
- The Escapist on IMDb
9/10
When it comes to movies about escaping from prison, Escape from Alcatraz from 1979 with Clint Eastwood takes the cake and nothing else comes close. That movie has been my absolute favorite prison escape flick for all my life, but the time has come for something else to take its place. The Escapist is what I would call a modernized, updated reinterpretation of Escape from Alcatraz with a much better soundtrack, more intense storyline, more vivid characters, and more stunning visuals - and it's set not even remotely close to Alcatraz. I was completely blown away by The Escapist, in all aspects, and I'm still recovering from how amazing it was.
The Escapist is about inmate Frank Perry (Brian Cox) who is twelve years into a life sentence and perfectly content with living behind bars for the rest of his life. This is until he receives a letter about his daughter and decides in one quick minute he must escape to go see her. Not only is the London prison an entirely brutal place with its own social system based on library cards, but the other inmates who pack the place are the typical asshole thugs. Frank devises an intricate escape plan and must recruit fellow inmates Lenny Drake (Joseph Fiennes), Brodie (Liam Cunningham), Lacey (Dominic Cooper), and Viv Batista (Seu Jorge).
The Escapist uses two parallel storylines that eventually converge to build the film. The first is showing the escape in progress, while the second is showing all of the events leading up to the escape and the preparation. Rupert Wyatt's editing techniques involve cutting between the storylines at moments where the location or the actor's actions were similar, something that mesmerized me every time. Great editing combined with an incredibly rich visual style, a riveting and inspiring story, one of the best scores I've heard in ages, and uncanny performances have resulted in my new favorite escape movie. The Escapist is a bold, energetic, intense, and inspiring film that surprised and impressed me more than almost any film at Sundance.
Although some will say story is everything with a movie, in The Escapist, not only is Frank Perry's story actually interesting (for once), but the remaining visual and aural elements outweigh the story in order to turn it into a fascinating film. Rupert Wyatt has considered all aspects of the prison atmosphere: the sound work in this is some the best all year (and deserves an Oscar nomination) and the rich visuals perfectly define this claustrophobic London prison. If you're a prison break movie fan in the slightest, then The Escapist deserves more than your undivided attention.
I've got to give a special shout out to Benjamin Wallfisch, who's work on the score in this incredible. The music in this is half of what made it so awesome. The music in The Escapist reminds me of Tyler Bate's 300 score, that was energetic, intense, and upbeat. Bravo Benjamin Wallfisch for composing one of my favorite scores of 2008.
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Reader Feedback - 11 Comments »
1
All I have to say is Shawshank Redemption is the best escape from prison movie.
tom on Jan 24, 2008
2
While i do enjoy Alcatraz….i must agree with Tom…..Shawshank.
Heckle0 on Jan 24, 2008
3
Okay, okay, good point about Shawshank, but I guess that is in a category of its own and not the kind of escape flicks I'm thinking about that both Alcatraz and Escapist fall into… 
4
There's a hint in its tagline "The greatest adventure of escape ever filmed!" and I tend to agree. By a country mile 'Papillon'.
Jonathan Thompson on Jan 24, 2008
5
Or, how about "The Great Escape" or "Grand Illusion"? Special ups to JT for mentioning Papillon, too. "Escape from Alcatraz" might be good–I've never seen it, but those three are absolute bona fide classics of cinema. Although, since they're all POW camp movies, and not about 'prisons' per se, maybe they don't count, either.
Jeremy on Jan 24, 2008
6
Apologies about the double-post. Tried to edit.
Jeremy on Jan 24, 2008
7
8
looks completely awesome, is it foreign or coming to USA soon?
Richard on Jan 24, 2008
9
I saw "The Escapist" at Sundance, not at the premiere but one of the other screenings- and you're right, it replaces many of my favourite movies of that genre too by updating and cleverly subverting it.
I thought it was more of a "prison redemption" story than an actual "prison escape" (even though it has both) … so for me it lives alongside films like "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Birdman of Alcatraz", in that the prison is something of a metaphor and the drama is related more to that than the mechanics of escaping from a prison.
Aaron on Jan 26, 2008
10
I saw the film and it was the great.The music intense . Wow!
Glenn White on Jan 27, 2008
11
Cox-y. Dundee's most famous son. Gotta support the neighbours. Sounds good, after Prison Break I need something less contrived to restore my faith. By the sounds of it, I should check out this Butterfly flick ….
Dr.Duvel on Jan 28, 2008