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In a place where the inmates are always one breath away from explosion, lifer Frank Perry (Brian Cox) appears just the opposite. Countless years of prison life have reduced him to a walking version of the crumbling block walls surrounding him: dead eyes, slow moving, rarely speaking, too old now to be a threat to the rest of the population. Only one thing matters to him: his daughter, whose picture he always keeps before him.
He’s written his wife many times to learn about the girl’s wellbeing, but he’s never received a response. Then, one day, a letter comes. His daughter is sick. Now Frank has a purpose: he must break out, go to her, and save her at any cost.
So Frank hatches a plot, recruiting a few inmates with specific skills, and little to lose, to join him (Liam Cunningham, Joseph Fiennes, and Seu George). It’s not primarily the guards they have to foil. This prison is controlled by the ruthless inmate Rizza (Damian Lewis) and his brutal, predatory, addict brother, Tony (Steven MacIntosh). Moreover, Frank’s new, boyishly-attractive young roommate, Lacey (Dominic Cooper), who has become the center of Tony’s attention, threatens to expose their meticulous plans.
But just before the planned prison break, a startling turn of events forces Frank to rethink his options, leading to an astonishing ending.
The Escapist is a raw, nail-biting, definition-of-gritty thriller. For modern audiences who appreciate The Hunger Games’s display of tributes being treated like meat for the entertainment of others, this is much the same, as inmates crowd along the balconies any time there’s a brawl or a shanking, taking perverse pleasure that it’s not them.
The tale is told using rapid flashbacks, from the present-moment, break-neck escape sequences, to the slower-moving back story of the planning stages. At times, the thick brogues--cockney, Irish and Scottish--can be a bit hard to understand, but you’ll keep up, because the context usually makes the points clear.
The Escapist, ultimately, isn’t just about a prison break. It’s about a man—or maybe any of us—who escapes from life by building prisons to torture himself, perhaps far more than the real world he’s running from. It’s also about how we can make a way out—no matter how long it’s been, how great the losses, or how empty and jaded we may feel.
That’s the character that Brian Cox plays so well: a man who comes to understand the meaning of freedom. In The Escapist, we’re not told any details about Frank’s crime; we only know what it cost him and others close to him—and how he makes peace with it.
You can watch this film for the thriller that it is, and it won’t disappoint—it’s terrific. Or you can watch it as a metaphor and take what you can from it. It’s one of my all-time favorites for both reasons, and it might very well become one of yours, too.
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