Escape Plan (2013)

Escape Plan (2013)


Plot Summary

Ray Breslin (Stallone) is a man who has devoted his life to making prisons inescapable by going into a prison as an inmate and trying to see if he can break out. And he has done a good job so far. A woman who says she works for the CIA approaches Ray and says that a new maximum security prison where the worst criminals are to be incarcerated, is about to be launched. So she wants him to go and make sure no one can get out. He agrees. So they make the necessary preps by telling Ray who the warden is and they give him a code that the warden will know that he's not a convict, and they plant him with a tracer. But when he's picked up, the ones who pick him up remove the tracer. When he arrives at the prison, he discovers that the warden is different from the one he was told and when he tells him the code, he claims that he doesn't know what he's talking about. He realizes that someone doesn't want him to get out. He then tries to find a way out but he needs help. Another prisoner, Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger) becomes friendly with him. And they decide to work together to get out.

I'm going to try not to post spoilers as this is a popular film but not massively so that everyone knows most of the plot twists and such.

This is a movie that harkens back to the 1980s in a GOOD way. There is enough of the elements of an '80s action flick in this with some modern sensibilities that make this flow well. One of the elements is the evil warden and his top deputy. (Jim Caviezel and Vinnie Jones respectively) The other '80s style element was the "buddy" formula. You know the one, two guys don't trust each other then they find out that they have a common goal and work together to the point that they consider themselves friends. Having said that, there's the modern aspect of a plot that is (somewhat) believable and making the violence/fighting flow in a believable way though the ending of the film went back to the '80s standby of shooting all over the place with a high body count.

Sly and Arnie were quite good in this as I was most impressed by Stallone. He actually showed some acting chops with subtle facial expressions and when looking around for weaknesses in the facility. You can actually see his character's wheels spinning rather than having a blank expression. Arnie wasn't nearly as good but he didn't have to be as his character was a facilitator for Sly. There's an added subplot of Hobbes (the warden) needing to find someone named Manheim and Arnie is connected to said Manheim character. In fact, and this is the only in story thing i'll really talk about because it's mentioned in the summary but the prison isn't what it seems. It turns out this prison is an illegal privately owned holding facility.

I really liked the cat and mouse game between Sly and Caviezel as Caviezel designed the prison based on the report that Sly made about prisons and making them escape proof. I think that aspect should've been elaborated a bit more rather than being left unsaid. Caviezel is excellent as the bad guy and like in most '80s action movies he's evil for the sake of being so. He also had an accent going on so it made him that foreign evil type that was prevalent in that decade as well but Caviezel puts enough meat on the bone that it isn't completely stereotypical.

I also have to give this movie props for having a Muslim character who for the first quarter to half of the film could've been your typical "bad Islamic extremist". Fortunately though, they went the other way and made the character very believable. At first you don't know who's side he's on because it looks like he's feeding information to Caviezel but he's also supposedly working with Sly and Arnie to get the hell out of the prison. Faran Tahir who i've seen in the new DALLAS TV series was excellent in that show and here in this movie he's just as good, if not better. I have to say i'm very impressed by this guy and I should probably find more stuff he's been in.

All in all the movie is quite fun to watch. The action is saved for the end but that isn't too bad as there are plot elements and story progression that is intriguing enough that the film doesn't drag. There's a lot of stuff going on in this and it's a little complicated but not to the point that you need to rewatch anything. The plot twists are pretty predictable except for one twist which I don't think was ever exposed in the advertising for the film and that was a pleasant little surprise to me.

Strong acting by guys who aren't known for it, good plot and a decent action finale makes this a solid *** stars for me.