Breakout

Robert Duvall must have felt like the Count Of Monte Cristo in Breakout. Not sharing in his wealthy grandfather's right-wing business type politics, Duvall is framed for a murder in Mexico while he's in Chile flown back and sentenced to a Mexican prison for 28 years. Only the fact that he's grandfather John Huston's blood saves him from execution. Or more than likely he would have been executed forthwith with all the problems he's causing.

The thought that his own family could be responsible does not even factor into Duvall's wife Jill Ireland trying to free him. For that she goes to commercial pilot Charles Bronsonto get the job done. Bronson's good for a dishonest dollar if you have enough of them. He and assistant Randy Quaid will do what they have to and in Quaid's case it involves one attempt with Quaid in drag.

Bronson proves to have a droll sense of humor in this film. The drag business with Randy Quaid is one example, another is his use of Sheree North who is married to deputy sheriff Roy Jenson and the girl needs some spending loot. Sheree has some of the best scenes in Breakout.

Charles Bronson fans should be very happy with Breakout at how he beats some considerable odds stacked against him.

Tom Gries("Will Penny") directs this thin drama that casts Charles Bronson as independent pilot Nick Colton, enlisted by a desperate wife(Jill Ireland) who wants him to fly into a Mexican prison to rescue her husband(Robert Duvall) who she insists was framed by the mafia. Colton agrees for $50,000, though of course the plan doesn't go as smoothly as they had hoped...

Though this has a good cast, there is little else about this film that is memorable, and credibility isn't that high either. Some goofy comedy involving costar Randy Quaid dressed as a woman doesn't help! Tom Gries did far better with "Will Penny"; perhaps his heart just wasn't in this?

In a rare show of his comedic talents as well as having more lines of dialog to read then in his last two or three films put together Charles Bronson as crackerjack pilot Nick Colton is really enjoying himself in the movie "Breakout". Together with his wife, in real life, Jill Ireland as Ann Wagner the wife in the film who's husband Jay, Robert Duvell,Nick Bronson is out to rescue Jay from a brutal Mexican prison.

Jay was framed by non-other then his grandfather Harris Wagner, John Huston, who together with his silent partners in the fruit and transportation business The CIA. Wagner feels that Jays free spirited and revolutionary ideas are a treat to the future of his company and has Jay arrested in Satiago Chile for a murder in Mexico some 2,000 or so miles away. Thrown before a Mexican kangaroo court, with a paid-off judge presiding, Jay's guilt despite the illogic fact that he can't be at two places at the same time, Mexico & Chile,is a forgone conclusion and he's sent up the river for 28 years in a castle-like Mexican prison.

Nick hired by Ann to rescue her husband is stifled by Jays sleazy grandpa Harris Wagner who Ann, unknowing that he had her husband set up, is totally trustful of. Nick realizing that the best way to get Jay freed is to do it by air and to keep the plan only to himself and his fellow rescuers Hawk Hawkins & Myrna, Randy Quaid & Sheree North, which leads to the exciting final. Nick not only rescues Jay but also finds out who that lousy creep Cable, Paul Mantee, really is by him making sure, for Harris and the CIA, that his rescue of Jay falls flat on it's face. Cable is to murder Ann's husband if he ever makes it back to the USA, where the Mexican police can't touch him.

Charles Bronson as Nick Colton and wife Jill Ireland as Ann Wagner really touch off sparks in all their scenes together even though Jill isn't married to him in the movie and they have no romantic scenes in the film at all. Nick's trying to learn how to fly a helicopter didn't go that well at all at the start of his lessons from helicopter pilot Harve, Alan Vint. Later when he took off by himself, Harve felt that the rescue attempt was to dangerous, with only three flying lessons under his belt had even Herve surprised and shocked at just how good he was at the controls.

Tense action when Nick tries to land and then rescue the very sick Jay Wagner who escapes from the prison hospital with the help of fellow prisoner Sosa, Jorge Moreno. Sosa who ironically was part of the frame-up that put Jay there in the first place may have gotten guilt feelings about what he did to Jay.

Some really great stunts in the movie with a man falling some 100 feet from a helicopter straight through the roof of a house, with what looked like nothing to break his fall. Later at the airport across the border in Texas at the end of the movie one of the baddies is sliced to pieces, by an oncoming jumbo passenger plane, as if he were a roll of salami.

Charles Bronson gets the rare chance to exercise his comic chops in this relatively lighthearted role (I've never seen him smile and joke so much before). Apart from that, "Breakout" is nothing special, there is very little action, and after all the anticipation the actual ecsape sequence is totally unbelievable. The only other notable part of the movie is the eye-popping (no pun intended) finish to the plane field fight. **1/2 out of 4.

The movie "Breakout" was based on a true story by Joel Kaplan, the man who actually broke out of a Mexican prison, after being framed for murder. He wrote the book, and I dated his sister. It was actually his sister who arranged his escape, not his fictional Hollywood wife. Hollywood greatly exaggerated the true story. Even the Mexican Attorney General admitted this was the greatest escape in Mexican prison history! The New York Times backs my story in about 1972. Jack Sandy