Escape Plan Movie Review!!!

Need to get away from things for a while?? Then you need an Escape Plan!!! Read on for more!

What a cracking little movie this is.  A nice twisty action thriller from start to finish. With shades of Tango & Cash as well as Face / Off you can’t really go wrong.  To be honest, I’m surprised we’re not getting loads more of these movies collaborating our favourite action heroes of yesteryear.  How hard could it be to come up with a story around these guys?  I’ve always wanted to see a reboot of Jackie Chan’s Dragons Forever – replacing Jackie, Sammo & Yuen with Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Van Damme!  That would be awesome!

Anyhow, lets get back on track.  Stallone plays Ray Breslin, an expert at breaking out of prisons; he’s hired to test the security of so-called maximum-security institutions.  After a small demo of his skills, we jump into the main meat of this movie.

Offered twice his normal fee to test out a new super prison, touted as the perfect prison, he finds the opportunity hard to resist, despite concerns from his team. 

The plan is simple.  He goes in, breaks out, only him and his team know his real identity as well as the warden of the prison and if the heat gets too strong he has an evacuation code which he can give the warden at any time to forfeit the mission and be released.  The only catch being that, unlike previous missions, this time even his team can’t be told the whereabouts of the top secret detention facility.  What could possibly go wrong?  Everything!!

As soon as he’s on the inside, it becomes pretty clear that the whole thing was a set up.  The warden he was expecting is not there, he has no idea where he is, his team has no idea where he is.  The only thing that is clear is that he’s intended to die in there. 

Unlike any other prison he’s ever been in, this place is a modern high tech super fortress run by mostly faceless masked guards, with the only exceptions being hard ass guard Drake (Vinnie Jones) and head honcho Warden Hobbes (Jim Caviezel).  Stallone is forced to forgo his usual methods, to think out of the box, to try and break out from the unbreakable. 

Thankfully, he forms an alliance with one of the other prisoners, a very worn and weathered Schwarzenegger.  But can they both make the break?  Will one of them die?  Will their escape plan be foiled??  You’ll have to see for yourselves.

I enjoyed seeing Arnie back in the fray with an actual character and some acting to do.  He was very rusty in both Expendables as well as The Last Stand, so it really was cool to see Arnie back to form, doing some things that even Arnie fans are likely to have not seen before.  I also liked the fact that this isn’t a straight up action movie.  If that’s what you expect then you may actually be left disappointed.  There’s a hell of a lot of logic, brainpower and planning that has to go into trying to break out of the perfect prison and it’s really engaging to watch how Stallone and Arnie try to figure out their escape plan.  A great balance of brain and brawn, the characters help to sell the story and pull you in, making you wonder if you would ever be able to escape if that was you in there.

What didn't I like about this movie?  50 Cent.  He wasn't terrible but he just seemed kind of awkward and mostly unbelievable in most of his scenes.  Thankfully, his scenes were few and far between.  The only real thing I would mention is that you do need to pay attention to keep track of who’s who initially, but as the plot really gets rolling, that’s very much a non-issue.

This was a surprise gem of a movie for me.  It’s not a huge blockbuster, it’s not a CGI extravaganza, it’s just a solid action thriller sold on a really cool premise featuring some really cool characters.

Catch it on the big screen while you can.

Rating 4 out of 5.

Bobby