Three stars. Rating: R, for violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang
Sometimes it pays to approach a
film with diminished expectations.
After the comic book nonsense of
both Expendables flicks, not to
mention January’s distastefully trashy Bullet
to the Head, I held out little hope for Sylvester Stallone’s recent return
to the big screen.
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| Although trapped in a maximum-security prison that offers little hope for any sort of escape plan, Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone, left) and Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) have a few ideas ... all of them highly dangerous, of course, and with little chance of success. But it's not like they have anything else to do... |
And although Arnold
Schwarzenegger cleverly parodied his advancing age in The Last Stand, also released in January, box-office disinterest
made that little action flick’s title seem prophetic, with respect to his career.
I therefore haven’t been
surprised by the disinterest in Escape
Plan, which arrives in theaters today after a rather lackluster publicity
campaign.
Which just goes to show the folly
of jumping to conclusions. Swedish-born director Mikael Håfström has uncorked a
tidy little thriller, which gets much of its juice from a clever script by
Miles Chapman and Jason Keller. The premise is intriguing, the execution is
engaging — if occasionally burdened by exploitation flick clichés — and, yes,
Stallone and Schwarzenegger acquit themselves honorably.
Indeed, they’re perfectly cast in
this twisty prison saga, which seems to have been shaped with their strengths —
and acting limitations — in mind. Håfström allows them to do what they do
best, and they do it well; the result certainly won’t be more than a footnote
in cinema history, but it’s a reasonably entertaining way to spend a night at
the movies.
Ray Breslin (Stallone) has a most
unusual career: He’s a structural engineer who specializes in prison design, or
— more precisely — the weaknesses of such institutions. As the “field agent”
half of the Los Angeles-based security firm Breslin-Clark, he allows himself to
be incarcerated into various prisons as an apparent felon, in order to escape
and thus expose design and (more frequently) staffing weaknesses.
Although ostensibly on his own,
Breslin always is monitored by his operational partners: handler Abigail Ross
(Amy Ryan) and genius hacker Hush (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson). Partner Lester
Clark (Vincent D’Onofrio) acts as the company “face,” securing the assignments
and managing the tidy sums that Breslin charges for his talents.
Following the completion of yet
another routine assignment, Breslin is offered a tantalizing challenge by CIA
operative Jessica Miller (Caitriona Balfe). Wanting to remove the political
stink left by a decade’s worth of nasty headlines concerning Guantanamo Bay and
extraordinary rendition, shadowy U.S. black-ops agencies have collaborated to construct
a top-secret über-prison at an undisclosed location, well away from prying
media eyes. The goal is to keep its
dangerous occupants locked up, no matter how clever — or desperate — they might
be.
That’s where Breslin comes in: If
he can’t break out, then All Concerned will be satisfied that their “detention
center” lives up to its promise.
Unfortunately, things don’t go
quite as planned ... which comes as no surprise to us viewers, of course.
Breslin’s tracking chip is savagely removed; he’s beaten by guards; and his
attempted use of the fail-safe “evacuation code” draws nothing but an amused
grin from warden Willard Hobbes (Jim Caviezel).
Breslin has been dumped into this
high-tech facility on purpose, and all his “keys” have been thrown away. But
why?
Before he begins to suss out possible
answers, Breslin is surprised by the helpful and downright friendly behavior of
fellow prisoner Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger). But while Rottmayer apparently
can protect Breslin from the other inmates, that doesn’t help with the bigger
picture; the situation seems hopeless.
Chapman and Keller’s scenario is
a riff on every classic heist thriller, all of which follow the same pattern:
First set up “foolproof” security measures, showing us every intricate detail,
and then grant our heroes the means to exploit subtle flaws in order to defeat
said measures.
And, so, Breslin faces his own
impossible challenge. Cameras are everywhere; prisoners are electronically
tracked by concealed bar codes in their clothing; individual cell walls are
transparent, affording no privacy; all cells are built well above floor level;
all guards wear dark masks, to conceal their identities and thus prevent any
means of cozying up to a given individual; and so forth.
The prison is a genius set by
production designer Barry Chusid, whose various genre credits include The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and the fan-beloved Serenity. His work here is damn
impressive: worthy of the volcano lair that Ken Adam built for You Only Live Twice, which was a
jaw-dropping milestone back in 1967.
One of this film’s key mysteries
concerns the prison’s actual location, and the answer to that question is a
genuine surprise, which further enhances the story’s “impossible mission”
tension.
Håfström’s most important
contribution is his insistence that this material be played straight; our
heroes don’t drop jokey one-liners, and there’s no sense that whatever follows
will be good-ol’-boy child’s play (as with both Expendables entries).
Granted, it’s an eyebrow-raiser
to accept that Stallone is a genius engineer, scientist, metallurgist and even
astronavigator, not to mention his ability to MacGyver a helpful gadget from
rather sketchy raw materials. But Stallone always has been good with grim
resolve, and that turns out to be Breslin’s primary emotion; the script even
offers a good reason for this attitude.
Schwarzenegger actually comes off
better, displaying levels of presence and charisma that hearken back to his
glory days. If we’re not allowed to understand Rottmayer’s motivations — his
eager cooperation seems so suspicious
— at least ol’ Arnie successfully sells the congeniality that goes with it.
And, yes, thanks to
cinematographer Brendan Galvin’s tight close-ups — and the fact that most of
this prison’s “worst of the worst” felons are played by bit players and
stuntmen who are shorter than our stars — the inevitable mano-a-mano beat-downs
are persuasively choreographed ... and much more credible than, say, Stallone’s
laughably overmatched fracas with the younger, larger and far tougher Jason
Momoa, in the aforementioned Bullet to
the Head.
All this said, both Stallone and
Schwarzenegger nonetheless have an acting range that extends no further than A
to B, which allows Caviezel to steal the show. His subtlety is marvelous,
particularly the half-smile that surfaces every time one of Hobbes’ “boys”
misbehaves. Caviezel is the coolest villain I’ve seen in awhile, and his vile
behavior here might upset folks who’ve grown fond of his kinder and gentler self
on TV’s Person of Interest.
The similarly talented Sam Neill
also makes the most of his small part as Kyrie, the prison doctor: an
inherently good man who begins to wonder if he has accepted the wrong
assignment. Veteran tough guy Vinnie Jones is appropriately nasty as Hobbes’
thuggish lieutenant, Drake.
Its virtues notwithstanding,
Chapman and Keller’s script doesn’t always stand up to close scrutiny, starting
with the biggest elephant in the room: It’s difficult to believe that so much
money would be spent to “bury” mega-baddies in such a facility, lost to public
view for all time, when it would be easier and cheaper to kill them. (Either
way, nobody would know, right?)
I also was disappointed by the
fact that Abigail and Hush, despite their mounting concern and much-ballyhooed
investigative and computer skills, remain on the sidelines. Indeed, they play
no part whatsoever in the climactic third act, which is simply wrong.
Editor Elliot Greenberg keeps
things going at a good clip, efficiently concealing the slightly too-long
running time of 116 minutes. Composer Alex Heffes’ overbearing score, on the
other hand, is painfully clumsy, badly placed and often irritating.
For the most part, though, this
is an entertaining action flick that builds to a highly satisfying conclusion.
I guess Stallone and Schwarzenegger do
have some big-screen life left in them.
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