Escape Plan

OK, I give. As long as it’s entertaining, I don’t especially care that you puerile, anachronistic jerks keep making the same film. Sylvester Stallone needs an Escape Plan from jail.  Now where have I seen that before?  And Arnold Schwarzenegger is there, too. I had to ask the guy next to me to pinch me to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I suppose this is why you give films a chance because nothing on that face seems terribly appealing.

Ray Breslin (Stallone) gets paid, and paid very well, thank you, to escape from prisons. Yes, it’s one of those professions that only exists in the movies. Testing prison integrity, however, is not without merit as a calling or a movie plot, so we’ll let it slide. Breslin is pretty good at his job, which is to say, he generally isn’t in prison for long. In the first ten minutes, there’s a prison break in which the reveal is much more like a magic trick than an integrity test. I’m nonplussed by the part where he plucks the four-digit combo from a keypad blind (it’s on the other side of a cell door) –and essentially backwards while knowing only the four keys that were used all within an eight-minute window. Um, yeah, knowing which keys were pressed will limit the choices, but that’s still up to 24 combos (feel free to check my math) blind and backwards as step three in an eight-step escape routine.

Maybe it’s a good time to mention Breslin is a genius. Funny, because Escape Plan doesn’t call him one, but somebody who can make a sextant from a bic pen and a pair of bifocals? That’s MacGyver stuff. Oh, and it’s so he can tell where on the planet his floating prison is, which he can do because he knows tides and rain and global current flow better than your average oceanographer. He also knows the boiling points for aluminum and tin. Professional prison breaking requires intense study of all physical and social sciences.

Now if you buy all that, Breslin has been shanghaied into the ultimate prison. Location: unknown. All cells are see-through. All guards wear masks 24/7 (imagine Eyes Wide Shut with billy clubs and tasers instead of horny men). His handlers don’t know he’s gone. And the evil warden (Jim Caviezel) does not honor Breslin’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card. He’s gonna have to stay in there for at least three turns … unless he rolls doubles. Speaking of doubles, this is when Arnold Schwarzenegger shows up, disguised as Arnold Schwarzenegger. I love this part: this is a for-profit prison. Much more efficient than your state prisons, of course.  Arnie and the other inmates are here because people with money want them there.  Hmmm … still trying to get my head around free market competition among incarceration options. Tea Partiers should know about this. If tax dollars don’t pay for prison, somebody’s gonna have to freelance, folks. Bottom line: Sly and Arnie break out from the world’s most unbreakable out prison ever!

Now why do I find myself rooting for them not to find a way to break out? To stay in prison, trapped, helpless, tortured, for ever and ever? That would be a darn shame, wouldn’t it?

Stallone has proven dependables
Breaking out of jail, commendables!
When Arnie arrives
The plot derives
Beats the Hell out of The Expendables

Rated R, 115 Minutes
D: Mikael Håfström
W: Miles Chapman & Jason Keller
Genre: The boys are back in town
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The 21st Century