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DVDfever.co.uk – The Escapist DVD reviewDom Robinson reviews
Contender Home Entertainment
- Cert:
- Running time: 97 minutes
- Year: 2007
- Released: February 2009
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £15.99
- Extras:Making of, Behind the scenes, Storyboard Comparison, Theatrical trailer, Audio commentary
- Vote and comment on this film:View Comments
Director:
- Robert Wyatt
(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 Escapistis a low-budget prison movie which brings together several characters who’d normally never associate with one another outsideof that environment but through the alliances they’ve formed they do find common ground – and what any prisoner wants is toescape.
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), includeLenny 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 chronologicalorder – 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 itstill 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 makefull use of their talents and while we know that Rizza is the top dog and Tony is the annoying one, the film has to spendmore time on the main characters’ escape plan and then show them carrying it out so these two sadly get a bit sidelined, eventhough they do have some key moments. One bit that fell short early on, for example, was when we see that the presence ofRizza leads to one prisoner, who clearly has some form of mental disorder, forced to harm himself and I couldn’t actuallyunderstand 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 greatlywith fantastic incidental music from composer Benjamin Wallfisch. All the cast play a brilliant part, but the standouts areLewis, even though he deserves more airtime, Cox and Cooper.
The fact there are both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 options is excellent… but why are thereno subtitles? I prefer them to be available as an option and some strong Irish accents don’t make for easy deciphering, whileother softly-spoken words just get totally lost. The audio does get a work out for the thumping instrumental music as well asthe roar of the crowd in certain scenes and some spectacularly violent moments. I have to point out, alas, that the last chapteris 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 shortfilm, Get the Picture, which ran for just 9 minutes, and then Wyatt wanted them to work together on a feature-lengthversion of a prison-style film based on a story published in 1890 entitledIncident at Owl Creek, butdon’t click on that link if you haven’t seen this film because it *will* give spoilers. There’s also discussions about the castand 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 turnedout 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 onone 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’sexcellent 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-minuterunning time. Personally, I’d bank on at least one every five minutes plus one each for the opening and closing credits. The menufeatures various clips from the film with the aforementioned instrumental music from the film. Annoyingly, this is one of thoseDVDs which features pre-menu trailers, but why aren’t these in the extras menu?
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.