Have a lovely day, ass-hole!

Escape Plan

(2013)

(SPOILERS) Escape Plan, Stallone’s third prison movie (I’m not counting Escape to Victory, but maybe that’s wrong) is also his middling one. On the plus side it lacks the abject sincerity of Lock Up, on the minus it is unable to embrace the unkempt energy of Tango & Cash. As full of illogicalities as the formerly titled The Tomb is, it might have passed muster if director Mikael Hafstrom had tightened the pace and sufficiently clarified plot twists that provokes a fair bit of head scratching. The consequence is, it’s left to Sly’s co-star to salvage what he can of the picture in his most enjoyable performance since I cant remember when (probably in 20 years). It’s just a shame its not in service of a better movie.

Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a guy who spends his working life breaking out of maximum-security prisons and reporting to their administrators on the systemic and procedural flaws. He gets an offer from the CIA (he thinks) to test a top secret, off the books, privately funded facility, which he accepts. Before long he is incarcerated, making pals with Arnie’s Emil Rottmayer and encountering a “good” Muslim Javed (Faran Tahir); Javed is only an opium grower and not one of those nasty extremist types (you see, by employing clichés the makers are making a valuable point about stereotyping!)

The opening sequence incorporates a flashback showing Ray’s escape, which is the kind of thing you hope the movie will excel at (although, I’m not sure how confirmation of the four keys the guards use as the passcode will help Sly; surely than only narrows the number down to thousands of possible combinations?). After all, the point of a good prison escape movie is the slow-burn tension of planning the attempt and the ingenuity with which said attempted is enacted. Disappointingly, when it gets to the stage of trying to get out the makers forsake cunning for running about and shooting things. There’s a nice bit where Arnie begs audience with Warden Hobbes (Caviezel) and it turns out to be ruse to secure a tool Sly needs. But such developments are few and far between. Mostly, plans involve staging a fight.

This is a picture where you’re left wondering why exactly Sly’s business partner (played by Vincent D’Onfrio, so you know he’ll turn out to be a backstabbing bastard from the first moment you clap eyes on him) wants to screw him over. Because the director hasn’t put enough emphasis on his motivation; it’s for the money, it always is, but essentially he turns out to be a bad guy because he turns out to be a bad guy. It’s the same with the reveal that Arnie was Mannheim all along; I think the idea is that the bad guys want Mannheim’s device, which can bring down the world’s banking system, for their own purposes. Mannheim, because Arnie is playing him, only uses it for some kind of wealth redistribution ends… But didn’t we gather he brought down the Icelandic banking system and “the bank collapse six years ago”?

The problem with a director like Hafstrom, who is technically adept but doesn’t seem able to judge natural rises and falls of pace, is the movie comes out at one pitch. This was a problem with 1408 too; a nice enough idea and sporadically effective, but it went on and on and on without variation. You end up with questions of “Why did such and such do this or that?” but the movie as a whole has failed to invest you with sufficient reason find it important. We’re asked to rely on Arne and Sly being good guys because they always are and D’Onfrio and Jim Caviezel being villains because they don’t really have that leading man thing (even Caviezel’s Jesus has a troubling edge to him).

Do I really buy that no one would realise the prison is out at sea on the grounds of “stabilisers” and being positioned in calm seas? I suppose the writers at least gave a thought to possible objections, but it doesn’t fly. I had that twist spoiled for me, but it’s not as if anyone familiar with Face/Off wont have seen it before. And it’s not a reveal of the sort that turns everything upside down. The inherent problem with a prison escape movie is setting impossible objectives. There are a few nice touches (the transparent cells, the THX1138-esque guard masks) but it becomes necessary to fall back on old staples (tunnels leading to opportune places) in order to get anywhere. There are some attempts at political commentary, but they feel rather weak. The implicit criticism of extraordinary rendition, the prison being run by “military and Blackwater rejects”, the references to the financial crisis. But it’s never more than window dressing, and as such feels slightly desperate; an attempt to boost credibility by aging superstars who never had any interest in saying anything to start with (and I include Arnie as governator; okay Arnie did come out with stuff about people being weak and needing leading early in his career didn’t he? Does that constitute keen purpose, however objectionable?)

Stallone’s post-Rocky Balboa reinvigoration hasn’t been up to much truth, be told. At least in the early ‘90s he was trying different things, albeit with mixed results. And then in the late ‘90s he did Cop Land. Since Rocky he’s been coasting on his iconic roles and ‘80s nostalgia (The Expendables). He hasn’t essayed a really memorable role, stretched himself or even looked like he was having fun. And Escape Plan is no different. Curiously, he’s looking his age more here than in the likes of Expendables and Bullet to the Head, whereas Arnie, who was really looking his years in both his Expendables cameos and The Last Stand, seems positively reinvigorated, complete with greying locks. Perhaps it’s the beard, perhaps the cinematographer had a beef with Sly. Lucky Amy Ryan gets to play Stallone's girlfriend. From The Wire to the bird of someone a quarter of a century older than you.

Either way, Arnie’s having enormous fun. He gets all the best lines too, accusing Sly of hitting like a vegetarian, trying to persuade him to lay off the pummelling (“Relax, it’s pretend!”), spinning Hobbes a yarn about wanting to be an artist before displaying the results (“I told you I no talent”) insulting Javed’s mother (“and she could polish a helmet!”) or grabbing hold of a mounted machine gun and opening fire with the uproariously delivered but bargain-basement quip “Have a lovely day, ass-hole!”. And the scene where he gets to mouth off in German is a treat.

As with any Sly movie that isn’t Rocky, Rambo or The Expendables, Escape Plan flopped in the US. In contrast it did reasonably well worldwide, suggesting the duo might not be put out to pasture quite yet. Arnie’s other comeback movies have bombed (to his credit, he seems refreshingly willing to mix up his choices), so it’s as well he has a no doubt CGI-aided Terminator in the offing. Stallone can rely on another Expendables. But whether anyone is interested in either carrying a movie solo any more is debatable. In Arnie’s case it might be a good thing. He’s making interesting choices. Escape Plan may not be a particularly interesting movie as a whole, but it becomes so when the Austrian Oak is in frame.

**1/2

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

People still talk about Pandapocalypse 2002.

Turning Red (2022) (SPOILERS) Those wags at Pixar, eh? Yes, the most – actually, the only – impressive thing about Turning Red is the four-tiered wordplay of its title. Thirteen-year-old Mei (Rosalie Chiang) finds herself turning into a large red panda at emotive moments. She is also, simultaneously, riding the crimson wave for the first time. Further, as a teenager, she characteristically suffers from acute embarrassment (mostly due to the actions of her domineering mother Ming Lee, voiced by Sandra Oh). And finally, of course, Turning Red can be seen diligently spreading communist doctrine left, right and centre. To any political sensibility tuning in to Disney+, basically (so ones with either considerable or zero resistance to woke). Take a guess which of these isn’t getting press in reference to the movie? And by a process of elimination is probably what it it’s really about (you know in the same way most Pixars, as far back as Toy Story and Monsters, Inc . can be given an insi

I can’t be the worst. What about that hotdog one?

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (SPOILERS) It would have been a merciful release, had the title card “ The End ”, flashing on screen a little before the ninety-minute mark, not been a false dawn. True, I would still have been unable to swab the bloody dildoes fight from my mind, but at least Everything Everywhere All at Once would have been short. Indeed, by the actual end I was put in mind of a line spoken by co-star James Wong in one of his most indelible roles: “ Now this really pisses me off to no end ”. Or to put it another way, Everything Everywhere All at Once rubbed me up the wrong which way quite a lot of most of the time.

We’ve got the best ball and chain in the world. Your ass.

Wedlock (1991) (SPOILERS) The futuristic prison movie seemed possessed of a particular cachet around this time, quite possibly sparked by the grisly possibilities of hi-tech disincentives to escape. On that front, HBO TV movie Wedlock more than delivers its FX money shot. Elsewhere, it’s less sure of itself, rather fumbling when it exchanges prison tropes for fugitives-on-the-run ones.

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

He’ll regret it to his dying day, if ever he lives that long.

The Quiet Man (1952) (SPOILERS) The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well less Anglophile and Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity.

He's not in my pyjamas, is he?

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) (SPOILERS) By rights, Paul Mazursky’s swinging, post-flower-power-gen partner-swap movie ought to have aged terribly. So much of the era’s scene-specific fare has, particularly so when attempting to reflect its reverberations with any degree of serious intent. Perhaps it’s because Mazursky and co-writer Larry Tucker (also of The Monkees , Alex in Wonderland and I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! ) maintain a wry distance from their characters’ endeavours, much more on the wavelength of Elliott Gould’s Ted than Robert Culp’s Bob; we know any pretensions towards uninhibited expression can’t end well, but we also know Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice have to learn the hard way.

I think World War II was my favourite war.

Small Soldiers (1998) An off-peak Joe Dante movie is still one chock-a-block full of satirical nuggets and comic inspiration, far beyond the facility of most filmmakers. Small Soldiers finds him back after a six-year big screen absence, taking delirious swipes at the veneration of the military, war movies, the toy industry, conglomerates and privatised defence forces. Dante’s take is so gleefully skewed, he even has big business win! The only problem with the picture (aside from an indistinct lead, surprising from a director with a strong track record for casting juveniles) is that this is all very familiar. Dante acknowledged Small Soldiers was basically a riff on Gremlins , and it is. Something innocuous and playful turns mad, bad and dangerous. On one level it has something in common with Gremlins 2: The New Batch , in that the asides carry the picture. But Gremlins 2 was all about the asides, happy to wander off in any direction that suited it oblivious to whet

There is a war raging, and unless you pull your head out of the sand, you and I and about five billion other people are going to go the way of the dinosaur.

The X-Files 5.14: The Red and the Black The most noteworthy aspect of this two parter is that it almost – but not quite – causes me to reassess my previous position that the best arc episodes are those that avoid tackling the greater narrative head-on, attempting to advance the resistant behemoth. It may be less than scintillating as far as concepts go, but the alien resistance plot is set out quite clearly here, as are the responses to it from the main players.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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