Review of Escape Plan (2013) by Jack F — 12 Apr 2014

Kinda funny.

I never would have guessed that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone's first significant team-up onscreen would actually be a rather low-key affair (I say "significant" here because I know the two are both featured in "The Expendables" movies, but Ah-nold's role in both those films is basically little more than a glorified cameo, whereas he gets top billing alongside Sly in this one). There are pyrotechnics in "Escape Plan," but they're generally of the more muted variety, and they really don't appear until the film's climax. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the movie works pretty well despite the lack of fireworks on display. It's more of a quiet thriller than a frenetic action picture, and I surprisingly quite enjoyed this.

Ray Breslin (Stallone) is the world's foremost expert on prison design and security. He literally wrote the book on it, and his job involves getting incarcerated in maximum security prisons (under a cover identity) and finding ways in which to break out. In doing so, he is testing the prisons' security systems and after he gets free and reveals his true identity to the prison wardens, he breaks down their flaws and tells them how they can be improved.

Now admittedly, this is beyond absurd. But truthfully, it's also beyond awesome. When we first meet Breslin, he's in character as an inmate in solitary confinement. He somehow miraculously escapes the prison, and then we're treated to his explanation as to how he managed to succeed. As you might expect, it's both ingenious and preposterous. I particularly love how he explains his tricks as flaws in the prison's system, when in actuality a prisoner would have to be a combination of Stephen Hawking and Harry Houdini to pull off an escape like this. But that's part of the charm of a movie such as this. It's like a scheme in a con-artist movie; it's almost always too complex and elaborate to have any shot of working in the real world, but it's damn fun to watch it unfold onscreen.

Things don't go as smoothly for Breslin when his next assignment turns out to the be "The Tomb," an off-the-grid, privately funded prison facility that houses individuals that the prison's funders simply want to be...well, "disappeared." This includes criminals and terrorists as well as political prisoners and people who had the misfortune to make enemies in high places. There's nothing legal about this, and the inhabitants have zero rights; when the sadistic warden Hobbes (Jim Caviezel) tells newcomers that their ass belongs to him, he means it literally.

As far as set-designs go, The Tomb is pretty impressive. The cells are stacked on top of each other like Tetris blocks, and they're actually made entirely out of plexiglass so that eyes can be on the prisoners at all times. Solitary confinement is basically a "hot box," with a blinding light trained on its occupant. The guards all wear black, Michael Myers-esque masks so the prisoners have no idea what they look like and therefore can't tell them apart from one another. This minimizes the chances of exploiting a particular guard's weakness.

Indeed, the whole facility has been designed to be completely escape-proof; in fact, it's been designed almost literally based on suggestions from Breslin's book. And almost immediately upon arrival, Breslin discovers that he has been set up; Hobbes knows who he is, and he isn't about to let him go. Someone paid to have him sent here, to this inescapable death-trap he indirectly helped to design. Thusly, Breslin, along with a fellow inmate named Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger) begins to plot an elaborate escape plan, all the while contending with Hobbes, other prisoners, and the vicious head guard (Vinnie Jones). But perhaps the biggest snag occurs when Breslin discovers just where exactly The Tomb is located...

As I mentioned at the start of this review, "Escape Plan" doesn't play out as a slam-bang thriller (well, not entirely) and that's because much of the movie revolves around, well, planning an escape. I liked watching Breslin and Rottmayer meticulously dissect the (very) few defects of their surroundings and use them to their advantage. The build-up is a lot of fun, and any old-school actioner would get a kick out of watching Stallone and Schwarzenegger team up to take down some bad dudes...even if the vast majority of their team-up efforts consist of conspiratorial plotting rather than shooting and fisticuffs. It's surprising, but it works.

The escape itself is a bit of a let-down, as it's portrayed as mostly a standard prison riot. This is where the more traditional action elements kick in and though they're handled pretty well by director Mikael Hafstrom ("1408"), truthfully they seem kind of boring, especially when compared to the cleverness on display in Breslin's first escape seen at the beginning of the movie. But hey, this is a Schwarzenegger/Stallone team-up movie; it can't be entirely quiet. And it's certainly satisfying to see the nasty warden and head guard (who are admittedly walking cliches) get their comeuppance.

Overall, "Escape Plan" is certainly not flawless--I also had some questions regarding one of the plot twists at the film's end--but it has its charms, and there was enough there to keep me entertained. I wouldn't mind seeing Sly and Ah-nold team up again, even beyond the upcoming "The Expendables 3." How about a movie in which one of them was the villain and they had to fight each other? "Rocky vs. the Terminator." Now there's an idea.