This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
(The Escapist, Get The Picture, Subterrain, Ticks)
Producers:
Alan Moloney and Adrian Sturges
Screenplay:
Robert Wyatt and Daniel Hardy
Music:
Benjamin Wallfisch
Cast :
Frank Perry: Brian Cox
Rizza: Damian Lewis
Lenny Drake: Joseph Fiennes
Viv Batista: Seu Jorge
Brodie: Liam Cunningham
Lacey: Dominic Cooper
Sam: Vincent McCabe
Tony: Steven Mackintosh
Jumpy con: Ned Dennehy
Sikes: Jack Walsh
Hedges: Frank O'Sullivan
Two Ton: Sheamus O'Shaunessy
Mary: Domhnall O'Donoghue
Stan: George Seremba
Frank's daughter: Eleanor McLynn
Frank's wife: Bernadette McKenna
The Escapist
is a low-budget prison movie which brings together several characters who'd normally never associate with one another outside
of that environment but through the alliances they've formed they do find common ground - and what any prisoner wants is to
escape.
Frank Perry (Brian Cox) particuarly wants out because he's in for life and wants to get out to see his daughter
(Eleanor McLynn) whose health has taken a turn for the worse because she's now a junkie. The rest of the clan, with Cox (right, in centre), include
Lenny Drake (Shakespeare in Love's Joseph Fiennes), Viv Batista
(The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou's Seu Jorge),
Brodie (Liam Cunningham) and Lacey (Mamma Mia's Dominic Cooper).
At several points throughout the movie, it fast-forwards to their later breakout attempt - rather than doing things in chronological
order - so that keeps things moving rather than just filming life inside the same four walls for much of its running time,
and there's various elements to the escape, making it a lot like an episode of Prison Break, but from season 1 when it
still made a bit of sense and not the recent season 4 episodes that lost the plot completely.
Damian Lewis, as Rizza, and Steven Mackintosh, as Tony, are great but the film is relatively short to make
full use of their talents and while we know that Rizza is the top dog and Tony is the annoying one, the film has to spend
more time on the main characters' escape plan and then show them carrying it out so these two sadly get a bit sidelined, even
though they do have some key moments. One bit that fell short early on, for example, was when we see that the presence of
Rizza leads to one prisoner, who clearly has some form of mental disorder, forced to harm himself and I couldn't actually
understand why.
Overall, The Escapist is a great piece of entertainment and a marvellous directorial debut for Rupert Wyatt,
such to the point that I didn't realise it was his first as so many scenes show great accomplishment. It's also boosted greatly
with fantastic incidental music from composer Benjamin Wallfisch. All the cast play a brilliant part, but the standouts are
Lewis, even though he deserves more airtime, Cox and Cooper.
The Escapist: Trailer
The film is presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio, occasionally with the encoding not making a 100% job of the fact
that the scenes are intentionally grimy due to the prison setting. That was with the benefit of viewing it upscaled to a 37"
plasma screen via an Xbox 360.
The fact there are both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 options is excellent... but why are there
no subtitles? I prefer them to be available as an option and some strong Irish accents don't make for easy deciphering, while
other softly-spoken words just get totally lost. The audio does get a work out for the thumping instrumental music as well as
the roar of the crowd in certain scenes and some spectacularly violent moments. I have to point out, alas, that the last chapter
is slightly out-of-sync.
The extras are as follows:
Making of (13:30):
Chat from the cast and crew talking about how director Rupert Wyatt and Brian Cox previously worked together on the 2004 short
film, Get the Picture, which ran for just 9 minutes, and then Wyatt wanted them to work together on a feature-length
version of a prison-style film based on a story published in 1890 entitled
Incident at Owl Creek, but
don't click on that link if you haven't seen this film because it *will* give spoilers. There's also discussions about the cast
and crew's favourite prison movies.
Behind the scenes (7:26):
On-set footage during filming, so it does exactly what it says on the tin.
Storyboard Comparison (2:41):
Covers three scenes, the first being part of the breakout, so I won't give further details here, but it's one that turned
out very cleverly done. To give details on the other two would also spoil things.
Theatrical trailer (1:37):
In anamorphic 1.85:1 and gives a flavour of the film but doesn't spoil things too much since it all whizzes by so fast so on
one viewing alone you won't take it all in. Click above-right to see it.
Audio commentary:
Featuring Dominic Cooper and director/co-writer Rupert Wyatt, beginning with why they started the film with Leonard Cohen's
excellent track, The Partisan, which I'd never heard before seeing this.
As mentioned above there are no subtitles for the DVD and, also the chapters are a very lacking at only 12 for the 97-minute
running time. Personally, I'd bank on at least one every five minutes plus one each for the opening and closing credits. The menu
features various clips from the film with the aforementioned instrumental music from the film. Annoyingly, this is one of those
DVDs which features pre-menu trailers, but why aren't these in the extras menu?
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
The Escapist
is a low-budget prison movie which brings together several characters who'd normally never associate with one another outside
of that environment but through the alliances they've formed they do find common ground - and what any prisoner wants is to
escape.
