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Escape Plan (film)

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Escape Plan
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMikael Håfström
Screenplay byMiles Chapman
Arnell Jesko
Story byMiles Chapman
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyBrendan Galvin
Edited byElliot Greenberg
Music byAlex Heffes
Production
companies
Atmosphere Entertainment
Emmett/Furla Films
Distributed bySummit Entertainment
Lionsgate
Release dates
  • October 9, 2013 (2013-10-09) (Philippines[1])
  • October 18, 2013 (2013-10-18) (United States[2])
Running time
115 minutes[3]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$50 million[4]
Box office$137 million[5]

Escape Plan[6][7] (formerly known as Exit Plan and The Tomb) is a 2013 American action thriller film starring Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Vinnie Jones, Vincent D'Onofrio and Amy Ryan.[8] Escape Plan is directed by Swedish filmmaker Mikael Håfström, and is written by Miles Chapman and Arnell Jesko (Arnell Jesko is an anagram pen-name of Jason Keller).[9] The film follows Stallone's character Ray Breslin, a structural engineer who is incarcerated in the world's most secret and secure prison, aided in his escape by fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger).

The film premiered in the Philippines on October 9, 2013[1] and was released on October 18, 2013 in U.S. theaters.

Plot

Ray Breslin is a former prosecutor who co-owns Breslin-Clark, a Los Angeles–based security firm specializing in testing the reliability of maximum security prisons. He spends his life getting into prisons to study their designs and the guards' habits to find and exploit their weaknesses, thus enabling him to escape without a hitch or a victim. He claims his goal is to ensure that criminals sent to prison stay inside by eliminating the weakness of every prison.

Breslin and his business partner Lester Clark are offered a multimillion dollar deal by CIA agent Jessica Miller to test a top-secret prison and see if it is escape-proof. However this time around he and his work colleagues are not allowed to know where the Prison is, as this helps minimize the risk of outside help when escaping. Breslin goes against all his own rules and chooses the money, as he is offered double his normal fee. He agrees to the deal and gets himself captured in New Orleans, Louisiana, under the guise of a Spanish terrorist named "Anthony Portos", but the plan goes awry when his captors remove a tracking microchip from his arm and drug him on the way to the prison, which thus stops his colleagues from knowing where he's been taken.

Breslin wakes up in a complex of glass cells with no outside windows to indicate the prison's location. He meets fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer, and they both stage a fight for Breslin to study the solitary confinement cell, which uses high-powered halogen lights to disorient and dehydrate prisoners. Seeing that the cell floors are made of aluminium, but the rivets are steel, Breslin has Rottmayer acquire a metal plate from Warden Hobbes's office floor before the two of them and Muslim inmate, Javed, are once again thrown into confinement. Using the metal plate, Breslin focuses the reflection from the lights to heat the rivets and pop open the floor panel to reveal a passageway below.

He goes through the passageway and discovers that the prison is inside a cargo ship in the middle of the ocean, making a simple escape impossible in case of a possible breakout. Breslin and Rottmayer continue to study the complex by learning the guards' daily routines. However, Hobbes reveals to Breslin that he is aware of his identity, and with chief security officer Drake watching him, he wants to ensure that Breslin stays for the rest of his life in prison and is going to put him in maximum solitary confinement. Breslin offers to help Hobbes get the information from Rottmayer that he wants if he lets him remain with the other prisoners (and not go into confinement), to which Hobbes agrees.

Breslin feeds Hobbes false information about Rottmayer's boss, Victor Mannheim. Meanwhile, Breslin's colleagues Abigail Ross and Hush grow suspicious of Clark when Breslin's paycheck for the job is frozen. They discover from hacked documents that the prison, codenamed "The Tomb", is owned by a for-profit organization linked to an unnamed privately owned security provider, and Clark was offered a US$5 million annual salary from them in exchange for keeping Breslin behind bars.

Rottmayer has Javed convince Hobbes that he is double crossing them, and as payment he only wants to be allowed up on deck to do his nightly prayer. Hobbes honors the simple request. When up on deck, he actually uses a makeshift sextant to get the ship's latitude. Using the latitude and observations of the weather, Breslin and Rottmayer deduce that they are in the Atlantic Ocean near Morocco. Breslin visits the infirmary of Dr. Kyrie and convinces him to help him and Rottmayer escape by sending an email to Mannheim. Breslin then transmits a false tap code message from his cell, giving Hobbes the impression that a riot will occur in cell block C. With the majority of the security stationed at cell block C, Javed instigates a riot at cell block A, giving him, Breslin, and Rottmayer time to run toward the deck while a lockdown is initiated.

Breslin kills Drake, but Javed is shot dead by Hobbes and his men during their escape. Breslin goes to the engine room to reboot the electrical systems, giving Rottmayer time to open the deck hatch while a helicopter sent by Mannheim engages in a gunfight with the ship's crew. Rottmayer boards the helicopter while Breslin is flushed to the bottom of the ship by the automated water system. The helicopter picks up Breslin, but when Hobbes starts shooting at them, Breslin kills the warden by shooting and blowing up a group of oil barrels in front of him.

They land on a beach in Morocco, where Rottmayer reveals that he is actually Mannheim, Miller is his daughter, "Portos" was a codeword used to alert Mannheim that Breslin was an ally, and Hobbes was originally unaware that Breslin's cover story was fake. Later, at a Moroccan airfield, Ross informs Breslin that Clark had fled, but Hush tracked him in Miami, and locked him in a container aboard a cargo ship.

Cast

Development

Early reports in 2010 speculated that Bruce Willis was cast as Ray Breslin.[10][11][12] It was revealed by producer Mark Canton on The Matthew Aaron Show that Jim Caviezel had signed on to the film, playing the prison warden Hobbes.[13]

It was announced in April 2012 that British actor Vinnie Jones had been signed on to co-star. Jones revealed to the newspaper The Sun that there are three inmates escaping from the prison. Jones played Drake, the ruthless prison guard.[14]

Variety and other media in the news stated that Amy Ryan, Vincent D'Onofrio, and 50 Cent had joined the cast of Escape Plan.[15][16] It was confirmed in mid-April that 50 Cent would play the computer expert who was once incarcerated for cyber crimes helping Breslin's character escape, D'Onofrio would play the deputy director of the high-tech prison, and Ryan would play Stallone's business partner and his potential love interest.[17]

Production

In an interview with the British newspaper The Sun, Vinnie Jones stated that the film was to shoot April 16 to June 23 in New Orleans.[18] Shooting for Escape Plan was also confirmed to take place in Louisiana in the spring of 2012. In August 2012, at The Expendables 2 conference, Arnold Schwarzenegger commented on the film and stated that filming had finished.[19]

On April 9, 2013, it was officially announced that the film had been pushed back to a September 13, 2013 release and the film's title had been changed from The Tomb to Escape Plan.[20] It was eventually released on October 18, 2013.

On June 27, 2013, a debut trailer of Escape Plan was released through the gaming website IGN.

Reception

Critical response

The film was met with mixed reviews; it currently holds a 49% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 103 reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus states: "As much fun as it is to see Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger team up onscreen, Escape Plan fails to offer much more than a pale imitation of 1980s popcorn thrills."[21] The film also has a Metacritic score of 49 out of 100, based on 33 reviews.[22]

Tom Huddleston of Time Out London gave the film two out of five stars, commenting that the film "would have made a perfect vehicle for, say, a Chuck Norris or even a Jean-Claude Van Damme. But these two redoubtable, enormously watchable old-school heroes deserve better."[23] Ben Rawson-Jones of Digital Spy gave the film four out of five stars, commenting that it "defies those who wrote off the abilities of its stars to cut the muscular mustard in today's youth-orientated cultural climate. These supposedly old dogs have plenty of life—but their effectiveness relies on the foundation of a smart script that plays to their strengths and the audience's perception of their star personas."[24] Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times said in his review: "Mikael Hafstrom, the director, pushes the suspense buttons efficiently, and the plot twists are disguised well enough for the not-very-demanding crowd this film will draw. The scenes with Mr. Stallone and Mr. Schwarzenegger are a little disappointing — it’s their first pairing as top-billed co-stars, yet the script never gives them the kind of memorable exchange that makes fans howl with delight. But all in all, Escape Plan does what it sets out to do."[25]

Box office

Although underperforming at the U.S. box office - debuting at number four on the box office chart with $9.89 million 2,883 theaters and ultimately grossing only $25.1 million domestically, Escape Plan was an international box-office success - debuting at first place in several Asian and European markets, with the total international gross more than doubling its $50 million budget at $112.2 million, totaling up to a worldwide gross of $137.3 million.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b "Stallone, Schwarzenegger in a high-octane action-thriller". The Philippine Star. October 9, 2013. Retrieved October 12, 2013. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ Niall Murphy. "First trailer for Mikael Håfström's Escape Plan". Scannain. Retrieved June 28, 2013.
  3. ^ "ESCAPE PLAN (15)". E1 Films. British Board of Film Classification. October 1, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  4. ^ Finke, Nikki (October 20, 2013). "Halloween Horror: 'Carrie' Falls Flat After 'Gravity' Wins 3rd Weekend And #1 Global, 'Escape Plan' Trapped, 'Fifth Estate' Flops". Deadline. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  5. ^ a b "Escape Plan (2013)". Box Office Mojo/IMDb. Retrieved October 8, 2014.
  6. ^ "Release Date Roundup: FilmDistrict's 'Walk Of Shame'; Summit's 'Escape Plan'". Deadline.com. January 30, 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2013.
  7. ^ "Arnold and Sly's The Tomb has a new title!". Moviehole. Retrieved April 11, 2013.
  8. ^ Barnes, Henry (February 9, 2012). "Schwarzenegger and Stallone join forces for The Tomb". The Guardian. London.
  9. ^ Gorber, Jason (October 18, 2013). "Review: ESCAPE PLAN Is Escapist Fun". Twitch Film.
  10. ^ Weintraub, Steve. "Bruce Willis to Star in Prison Escape Drama THE TOMB for Director Antoine Fuqua and Summit Entertainment". Collider. Retrieved September 12, 2013.
  11. ^ Landy, Ben (May 27, 2010). "BRUCE WILLIS TO STAR IN 'THE TOMB'". Hollywood.
  12. ^ Miller, Ross. "Bruce Willis In Talks For Prison Escape Drama 'The Tomb'". Retrieved September 12, 2013.
  13. ^ White, James (February 21, 2012). "Jim Caviezel Enters The Tomb". Empire Magazine Online.
  14. ^ "Vinnie Jones Confirmed For The Tomb". Expendables Premiere. March 23, 2012. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
  15. ^ Sneider, Jeff; Kroll, Justin (April 4, 2012). "D'Onofrio, 50 Cent enter 'The Tomb': Amy Ryan, Vinnie Jones also join Summit actioner". Variety.
  16. ^ Chitwood , Adam (April 4, 2012). "Amy Ryan, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vinnie Jones and 50 Cent Join The Tomb". Collider. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
  17. ^ Chitwood, Adam (April 9, 2012). "50 Cent Joins Stallone, Schwarzenegger in 'The Tomb'". EURweb. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
  18. ^ kauri (February 17, 2012). "Stallone and Schwarzenegger headed to New Orleans for 'The Tomb'". Onlocationvacations.com. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
  19. ^ Associated Press (May 8, 2012). "Schwarzenegger joins Stallone in 'The Tomb'". Baton Rouge, LA: The Advocate. Retrieved April 9, 2013.
  20. ^ "The Tomb is Now The Escape Plan". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved April 11, 2013.
  21. ^ "Escape Plan". Rotten Tomatoes/Flixster. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
  22. ^ "Escape Plan". Metacritic/CBS Interactive. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
  23. ^ Huddleston, Tom (October 15, 2013). "Escape Plan". Time Out London. Retrieved October 16, 2013. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  24. ^ Rawson-Jones, Ben (October 14, 2013). "'Escape Plan' review: "Arnie and Sly rescue geriaction genre"". Digital Spy. Retrieved October 14, 2013. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  25. ^ Genzlinger, Neil (October 18, 2013). "Behind Bars, Where Anything Goes - Schwarzenegger and Stallone Star in Escape Plan". The New York Times. Retrieved December 18, 2013. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links

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