Review of The Great Escape (1963) by Ben L — 23 Mar 2016

I love the characters in this film, and the way they so nonchalantly start looking for methods of escape within minutes of landing in the prison. The entire film feels like a high quality heist movie. The team is assembled, we get to find out who is going to do what, and then we slowly see the plan executed. I have so much fun with this style of film, and it is made even better when you care about the people involved. The Great Escape went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to those people because within less than 30 minutes of film I felt like I knew and connected with at least twelve different characters (amazing considering most films nowadays struggle to even get you to care about ONE.) I was a little disappointed with the somewhat mundane nature of the actual plan because, aside from the size of the escape, it was the same as many other escapes they had attempted in the past. I guess modern Hollywood has conditioned me to expect something more intricate and complex with multiple moving parts. But I have to give additional respect to the film despite this plan, because they were telling a true story which can make even the mundane more exciting. I quite enjoyed the entire film, but I did have one big problem which might be a more personal expectation issue but it kept me from completely falling in love with the movie.

Big-time spoilers: The title set me up with false hope that this was going to be a big awesome happy ending. To be clear, I know this is based on a true story, so I'm not expecting they should change history. I just kept getting hit by disappointment and sadness that I never expected when the film began. First I have the big-time letdown when less than half of the planned number of prisoners actually make it out of the compound. So that was part one of my sadness. Then the even bigger letdown that almost every single escapee is caught and most of them are slaughtered. It was just such a downer ending to what felt like such an uplifting film. I almost expected that the movie was about to continue with an even bigger escape that was actually successful, sadly it was not meant to be. I want to make a point of saying I understand, in a way, they were completely successful because they stymied the German forces and made them devote way too many resources to recovering those who escaped. But it doesn't FEEL like a win when so many characters that you grew to love get unceremoniously executed.