Escape Plan [DVD]

Brilliant film. All action, quite violent but the odd sneaky bit which makes you grin pops in occasionally. I’ve watched it a few times now and still get caught up in the plot. Sylvester and Arnie together, what’s not to like?

Was there any greater dream of the 80s action movie fan than seeing Arnie and Sly team up in the same movie? Aside from perhaps appearing in an Arnie or Sly movie yourself, the answer is no. While we had a few close calls in previous decades, with JCVD popping up in Last Action Hero, and various in jokes between Stallone and Schwarzenegger in a number of movies, it wasn’t until The Expendables that those dreams came true. Unfortunately, Arnie was still in politics at the time, and not free for a large role – the same can be said for the sequels. Finally, Escape Plan came along – a fully fledged tag-team between the two titans. While not exactly having a balance of buddy-cop movies of the 80s where two stars would have equal billing and screen time, this is a Stallone led vehicle with Arnie providing stellar support – is it worth the wait?Well, it still would have been nice seeing the duo together at their peak. Here, the elder statesmen of neck-snapping quips play aged, experienced battlers who are thrown together in a novel twist on the Die Hard in a boat/house/plane/prison genre. The film centres on Ray Breslin (Stallone), a security consultant who, in convoluted Mission Impossible style, is hired by corporations to test the security of prisons – namely, how easy or difficult it is to escape from them. Going undercover as a prisoner, he works out an Escape Plan, and always succeeds. When the CIA offer Breslin a massive amount of money to test a new State of the Art prison, Breslin is suspicious but accepts – the twist being that none of his colleagues can know where he is going. A high concept idea to be sure, but one which leaves plenty of room for smart action and ridiculous solutions to absurd problems – good fun.Without spoiling too many of the twists and double-crosses involved, Stallone is held by a dastardly warden Hobbes (Jim Caviezel), hounded by guards and prisoners alike, and strikes up an uneasy partnership with prisoner Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger). Breslin must use all his experience to try to escape, but who can he trust? We get various scenes of Breslin pushing and probing with inmates and workers, with his cell and surrounding security systems, and he gradually chips away at the prison until cracks start to show, and the overall puzzle begins to piece together. Unlike most of the other Stallone renaissance films, this one is fairly light on action, and with a heavier focus on plot and tension. Although we have the two greatest action movie stars in movie history teaming up, we have a stellar supporting cast with Caviezel, Amy Ryan, Sam Neill, Vincent D’Onofrio, and even Vinnie Jones and 50 Cent putting in decent performances. While not exactly The Shawshank Redemption, and while we always know that Stallone will get free and wipe out the bad guys, it’s good fun trying to work out how he will get to that point. The last twenty minutes or so contain most of the action as Stallone races against the clock to get free and dispatch the bad guys via good old fists and gunplay. Aside from that, we get an occasional scuffle in the prison as the various groups of inmates and guards clash. The story and the performances are engaging enough that we don’t miss the action, and when it comes it is effective and worth the wait.As mentioned, this is a movie which fans of the central stars will relish. There may be disappointment from some fans that the action levels aren’t high, but this should please most viewers like myself who grew up on Terminator and Rambo. There may not be too many quotable lines or memorable kills, but it’s a glossy, well made, and well acted movie, perfectly enjoyable throwaway stuff which is still welcome even it arrived a couple of decades late.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, the ultimate action team up, but why wait so long to put the two action legends on screen together? They could have been in Face Off together after all. But to be fair, having the two of them busting up the screen back then may have been too much as both were and still are massive icons. As much as I loveTravolta and Cage in Face Off I do think that it would have been a perfect project for Arnie and Sly.However what we get if you don't count the little encounter Arnie and Sly have in the first Expendales film is a fairy decent 90's feel action romp, Escape Plan. The movie is a lot of fun to watch and I do really enjoy it bit it's just that it feels a bit late and a bit rushed. It's like the movie makers realised that they had waited far too long to team up The Terminator and Rambo and reached for the nearest script from the vault and quickly threw it together. Overall though it works and it's very watchable despite being utter nonsense and totally ridiculas.Now, I do consider Stallone to be a better actor than Schwarzenegger which is pretty obvious when you think about it. All you need to do is look back at Rocky, First Blood, Cop Land, even parts of the fairly unknown D-Tox and now with the likes of Creed, Sly is entering a whole new chapter. Arnie on the other hand was quite limited but I do consider his acting in Predator, The Terminator and T2 to be A1. But he is now on a level with Sly with the recent excellence of Maggie. I love both of these actors and will give anything they do the time of day. Keep up the good work boys!Taking into account that Escape Plan is predominantly a Stallone film with Arnold getting second billing it is Arnold who shines through here with Sly on auto pilot. Arnie is funny, still hard as nails and plays his part with a real sense of enjoyment. His acting is particularly good when he's trapped in solitary and starts to go mad, spouting off in fully spoken German rant. Arnie has all the best lines with "you hit like a vegetarian" and steals the action scenes, especially when he shoots a huge machine gun from a chopper and the camera pans around in slow motion on a close up of his eyes before he let's rip the bullets. It's a classic moment!The baddie in Escape Planis played by the guy who was Jesus in Mel Gibson's Passion Of The Christ, Jim someone or another. Anyway who cares, he diabolical in this and has no sense of presence or poses any threat of danger being the warden of the prison. All he does is talk with no expression somehow making us think he is scary while brushing imaginary bits of dust off his jacket or checking his nails. And for some reason he collects dead butterflies? He is a crap actor playing a crap role that would have Hans Gruber turning in his grave. Truly awful.But Vinnie Jones does a pretty good job at, well, being Vinnie Jones as one of the prison officers. They should have had him playing the main baddie.To conclude, Escape Plan is far from perfect but if you like no brainer big budget action and the sight of Arine and Sly blowing s**t up then as Rocky says, "GO FOR IT".I'm awarding the film a three star review based on the actual movie itself and not how much I enjoy it. That would be a four star all the way.

This is the first and hopefully not the last pairing of the action star duo in a film. (Yes, I am aware of the expendables series but Schwarzenegger only appeared in nothing more than a cameo role.)*Spoilers*So on to the actual film, Ray Breslin breaks out of prisons for a living, great job right? Well one day he is approached to break out of the ultimate prison which is code named the tomb and Sly being Sly he stands up to the challenge to get imprisoned. This is where it starts to kick off, Sly meets warden Hobbs played by the excellent Jim Caviezel. He is a no nonsense Warden that rules the prison with an iron fist. Warden Hobbs warns him that escaping is impossible, he is then sent into the general population where he meets Emil Rottmayer played by the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger.I won't go into anymore detail but people who are expecting an explosive and action packed film like the expendables are going to be disappointed, yes there is action scenes thrown in here and there but they are few and far between. Still this film comes highly recommended just to see Arnie and Sly on screen together cracking jokes and shooting the occasional gun.