CinemaNerdz

Movie Review: Escape Plan

Dane Jackson
Escape Plan

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone in "Escape Plan." Photo by Alan Markfield – © 2013 Summit Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved.

It’s safe to say that people already have a preconceived notion about Escape Plan. With its two main stars each in their late sixties, it’s easy to poke fun at this movie – especially when those two stars are 1980s action heroes Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you walk into Escape Plan expecting a cinematic masterpiece, you’ll be sorely disappointed. If, on the other hand, you walk into the theater wanting to be entertained, you will be. Escape Plan is a fun piece of escapist cinema that reminds me of movies like Escape From Alcatraz, and to a lesser extent, the Ocean’s franchise.

Stallone stars as Ray Breslin, an independent security consultant who purposely gets put in prison to expose a given facility’s flaws by escaping. The film opens with him escaping from a prison in Florida with the help of his team of associates flanked by Amy Ryan and 50 Cent. The way the scenes were filmed actually made me interested in how he pulled it off because I was as stumped as the guards he outsmarted were. After this breakout, Breslin’s security firm gets a job they can’t refuse: breaking out of a prison that is designed to keep people the world wants “disappeared” locked away forever.

This prison, known affectionately as “The Tomb,” is run by a maniacal warden (brilliantly played by Jim Caviezel) with a homicidal head of security played by Vinnie Jones. Both Caviezel and Jones are perfect in their roles. At times, they felt like throwback movie villains. Given the lead actors, this was a welcome touch. The cinematography within the prison area is wonderful. At times, stark and claustrophobic; at times expansive and overwhelming, the cinematographer definitely did a good job making the audience question if Breslin can actually break out.

While in prison, Breslin teams up with Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger). As Breslin begins to hatch his escape plan, it becomes evident to him that someone meant to put him in the prison not to break out, but to be forgotten. This motivates him to get out even more. Throughout the planning and escape attempt, it’s obvious that the geriatric duo are definitely having a lot of fun in this movie, with the most fun actually being had by Schwarzenegger. His enthusiasm for the Rottmayer character was so contagious that I started to want to see him more than Stallone. They ended up having pretty equal screen time though.

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At their age, there can’t be as much action as there was in the Commando, Rambo, and Terminator days. This made it so the director actually had to rely on making a complete film. Sure, there are a few cheesy moments and a few moments that are nods to all of Stallone and Schwarzenegger fans who have been waiting for a movie like this (not including The Expendables), but overall it felt like a movie that could have starred any pair. Who knows, with two different actors in the lead roles, it could have been a better movie, but I argue that it wouldn’t be as fun.

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Dane Jackson

Dane Jackson has been writing about movies since high school when he had a monthly column in the school paper about cult movies. His cinematic tastes have matured (slightly) since then.
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