The Escapist

What can I say?! This film is under rated and the actors and actresses deserve all the credit in the world for a truly entertaining performance. Hats off to Johnny Lee Miller and Andy Serkis; they blew me away. This film has it all; comedy, (Johnny's face in the plane!), drama (his wife), and the bit with Vin is truly heart wrenching. I really felt for Johnny's character and how much he NEEDS revenge, amazing! This is a film for young adults/adults. Due to the sometimes graphic nature of the images shown I wouldn't recommend this for children of 12 or under.

I must admit that I rented this movie on DVD, just because Andy Serkis was in it. He played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings - at least his voice did in the first part. So I was kind of curious to see the man behind the voice. But once I was five minutes past the titles the film kind of grew on me, Andy Serkis or no (although he plays his part rather well).and I really liked it. It is a gruesome story about a burglary gone REAL bad, but still it has got some humor too. This could have been a big hit, if only it had been made in Hollywood. I can see Michael Douglas play a part in the remake... But seriously, it is THAT kind of movie. Innocent guy, lovely wife, loads of money - and all of a sudden it does not matter any more. Great Thriller!

The skilled pilot Denis Hopkins (John Lee Miller) loves with his pregnant wife Valerie (Paloma Baeza) and has a comfortable lifestyle. When the gang of criminals leaded by the sadistic Ricky Barnes (Andy Serkis) breaks in his seaside house, he offers whatever the criminals want to protect his beloved wife but the evil Ricky kills Valerie. The baby is saved, and later the murderer is arrested and sent to the maximum security prison of Sullen Voe. Denis moved by the purpose of revenging the death of Valerie, gives Amy and his house to his sister-in-law Christine (Jodhi May). Then Denis breaks a police car and is arrested, but he does not reveal his true name and is called John "What" by the prisoners and guards. Denis successively escapes, forcing his transference to Sullen Voe. When he reaches his objective, Ricky schedules a confrontation, but things do not happen the way Denis expected.

"The Escapist" is a great thriller following the saying "Eye for an Eye". Laws with the soft sentence of twenty years for a brutal murder like the sadistic Ricky Barnes does in the movie will only change when societies proactively react, like for example, the character of Denis Hopkins does in the movie killing the criminal. Unfortunately the rushed flawed conclusion forgets the fate of the secondary characters of Christine, Ron and Ricky Barnes's son that could be easily associated to Denis, disclosing his true identity. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Escapista" ("The Escapist")

I am sure that this kind of film, if made in the seventies, would have been a very exciting yarn. This one is OK, but from the beginning, I don't understand why those criminals, and not simple thugs, chose precisely the home of this man to commit a gratuitous murder. Why? The villain if of course excellent in terms of cast, but I don't understand why he killed the main character's wife...Why? Because, I repeat, those hoodlums looked very like professionals. The rest of the film is just OK for me, not more. Gritty, yes; tough, yes; a good time wester, yes. It is a British film, not American, and there are not so many British crime movies those days, since the late nineties. Or very few are really good. Most of them are lousy.

Jonny Lee Miller plays Denis, a rich pilot with a pretty pregnant wife, Valerie (Paloma Baeza) whose life is turned upside down when a thief breaks into their humble home and maliciously shoots Valerie and leaves Dennis to cope with the lasting sadness of her murder. Denis is not satisfied when Valerie's killer, notorious thief Ricky Barnes (Andy Serkis), is thrown into an Alcatraz style prison for 20 years. For Denis, this sentence isn't enough; as he achingly muses, if he were given the option of visiting his wife for 2 hours once a week, a month or even once a year, that would be better than what he has now… nothing. He cannot get past his need for revenge; not even his baby girl, delivered by C-section, can coax him out of this fog. And so he devises a plan to get himself thrown into the same high-security prison as Barnes, and get his revenge.

Revenge is the central theme of this fantastic film, written by Nick Perry and directed by Gillies MacKinnon. It isn't always an edge-of-your-seat drama, more it is an intrinsic look into the creation, hungering and devouring need for revenge…. The high-stakes drama comes in the last half hour or so, when Denis's plan is tangible as he gets thrown into Barnes's prison. The film doesn't try to show that light exists at the end of the tunnel, or that every cloud has a silver lining. Denis's thirst for reprisal is depressing; he has such tunnel-vision that not even his baby girl and the hint of a fresh start can coax him out of his ebb. And the really sad thing is that as we watch Denis strive toward his realized vengeance, we as the viewer know that what comes after he succeeds is not going to be pretty… he will be left with nothing, no life, nothing to drive him, just the realization of all that he has lost. So while rooting for Denis to get payback on the evil Ricky Barnes, there is also a devastating knowledge that things will only get worse from here on in.

Johnny Lee Miller is a relatively unknown actor who never made good on his break-out performance in the film "Trainspotting"; if he is known at all, it is as Angelina Jolie's first ex-husband whom she constantly says she regrets divorcing. Miller doesn't always captivate and command the screen, but he is adequate in this lead role as a tough, driven lover whose sadness is really eating him alive. The real star in this film is the wicked Andy Serkis, best known for his role as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films and as the monkey in another Jackson film "King Kong". Surprise, surprise; Serkins can actually act sans the tight-blue lycra and CGI wires – his brilliance is measured by his loathsomeness – and trust me, it's always at breaking point!

Great little straight to video gem that would go totally unnoticed if it wasn't always on cable television.