Escape Plan
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel
Director: Mikael Hafstrom
Category: IIB
Rating: 2.5/5
This clunky but enjoyable action thriller brings the two box office kings of 1980s Hollywood, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, together for an energetic prison escape drama.
The finer details of the plot of Escape Plan are unfathomable, and the situations demand even greater suspension of disbelief than most Hollywood action movies. But its two main stars, who were derided in their heyday for their wooden acting, have acquired a weatherbeaten charm over the years and now seem charismatic compared to bland contemporary A-listers such as Channing Tatum. The film's only big letdown is that the duo are on the same side, and so don't face off in the hoped-for Rocky versus Terminator kind of way.
Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a muscular and smart escapologist used by the US government to test the security of its prisons. Breslin is dumped in jail incognito and has to figure out a way to escape, which he always does. Until, that is, he takes the job of testing a new maximum security prison run by a contractor, the cold and mean Hobbes (Jim Caviezel).
Breslin soon finds out that the location of the prison means his usual escape routines will not work, and realises that he's been set up. He bonds with fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), and the two develop the escape plan of the title.
Much of the time it looks like director Mikael Hafstrom is making it up as he goes along. The story follows no logical plan at all. Why is Breslin set up? Who knows? Why is Rottmayer really inside? That's not made clear.