After directing a reboot (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), a remake (The Gambler), and the pilot for another remake (The Exoricist), director Rupert Wyatt is now developing an original project. After The Gambler, Wyatt wanted to start directing his own material again, as he did with his feature debut, The Escapist (co-written by Daniel Hardy). The filmmaker is sticking […]
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- 8/26/2016
- by Jack Giroux
- Slash Film
The Escapist
Directed by Rubert Wyatt
Screenplay by Rubert Wyatt & Daniel Hardy
UK, 2008
The delight at seeing an old hand character actor take centre stage is a disappointingly rare experience, particularly when their prestige as a supporting artist has led to what could quite easily qualify as typecast. Outside of independent productions, it barely ever happens, with studio heads more keen to push forward the image of the latest, often talentless but recognizable face and ultimately relying on the indispensable veterans to provide the necessary gravitas in small doses. Hence one of the many reasons why Rupert Wyatt’s 2008 thriller The Escapist puts a broad smile on one’s face.
Bucking the trend after years of being in the shadows, Brian Cox (who’s name has been rather re-appropriated of late by a pesky physicist) plays Frank Perry, a lifer doomed to spending the rest of his miserable days inside an unidentified an ominous prison.
Directed by Rubert Wyatt
Screenplay by Rubert Wyatt & Daniel Hardy
UK, 2008
The delight at seeing an old hand character actor take centre stage is a disappointingly rare experience, particularly when their prestige as a supporting artist has led to what could quite easily qualify as typecast. Outside of independent productions, it barely ever happens, with studio heads more keen to push forward the image of the latest, often talentless but recognizable face and ultimately relying on the indispensable veterans to provide the necessary gravitas in small doses. Hence one of the many reasons why Rupert Wyatt’s 2008 thriller The Escapist puts a broad smile on one’s face.
Bucking the trend after years of being in the shadows, Brian Cox (who’s name has been rather re-appropriated of late by a pesky physicist) plays Frank Perry, a lifer doomed to spending the rest of his miserable days inside an unidentified an ominous prison.
- 9/16/2012
- by Scott Patterson
- SoundOnSight
After working with Brian Cox on Get the Picture, Rupert Wyatt decided to write a film to break Cox out of his supporting role rut. You’ll be glad he did. The Escapist, Wyatt and co-writer Daniel Hardy’s jailbreak movie starring Cox, is one of the most visually dynamic masterpieces in the genre.
Cox plays Frank Perry, who appears to be the stereotypical little old man for about 3 seconds, until you notice his tan jumpsuit. A criminal serving a life sentence, Perry has not received a single letter from his family since he was locked up 14 years ago, despite his constant attempts to contact his wife. Until now. Perry’s wife sends him a letter, informing him that his daughter has become a junkie and has had several brushes with death.
Determined to see his daughter before anything else happens to her, Perry gathers some of his prison buddies to help him escape.
Cox plays Frank Perry, who appears to be the stereotypical little old man for about 3 seconds, until you notice his tan jumpsuit. A criminal serving a life sentence, Perry has not received a single letter from his family since he was locked up 14 years ago, despite his constant attempts to contact his wife. Until now. Perry’s wife sends him a letter, informing him that his daughter has become a junkie and has had several brushes with death.
Determined to see his daughter before anything else happens to her, Perry gathers some of his prison buddies to help him escape.
- 1/31/2010
- by Jessica Guerrasio
- JustPressPlay.net
- I'm not sure what to make from the Brit List. A trio of films from last year's batch (Nowhere Boy, Never Let Me Go and The Debt) that effectively received a greenlight, and are now in the can, and in the list's inaugural year, Grant Heslov's Men Who Stare at Goats was the top vote-getter. Now in its 3rd year, the "List" of the most liked and recommended unproduced screenplays in the UK and Ireland is complied by only 40 people in the industry. You've got some attention-getting projects among the list below, that I'm sure we'll be discussing in the near future and the Playlist made a good round-up, but for the sake of getting to the cream of the crop, I'll look at the top three screenplays instead. 1. Good Luck Anthony Belcher (Ruby Films)Screenwriter: George Kay Storyline: A high-concept comedy based on an original idea by James Corden,
- 10/8/2009
- IONCINEMA.com
Release Date: April 3
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Writers: Daniel Hardy and Rupert Wyatt
Cinematographer: Philipp Blaubach
Starring: Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Liam Cunningham, Seu Jorge
Studio Information: IFC Films, 102 mins.
The Escapist, directed by Rupert Wyatt, is a high-octane, efficiently executed British film about a prison break. The story runs along two tracks: One shows us the escape itself, which begins with the film’s first shot, and the other flashes back to gray-haired inmate Frank Perry (Brian Cox) and his band of accomplices who are planning their flight to freedom.
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Writers: Daniel Hardy and Rupert Wyatt
Cinematographer: Philipp Blaubach
Starring: Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Liam Cunningham, Seu Jorge
Studio Information: IFC Films, 102 mins.
The Escapist, directed by Rupert Wyatt, is a high-octane, efficiently executed British film about a prison break. The story runs along two tracks: One shows us the escape itself, which begins with the film’s first shot, and the other flashes back to gray-haired inmate Frank Perry (Brian Cox) and his band of accomplices who are planning their flight to freedom.
- 4/3/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
ThinkFilm has picked up all North American rights to the British prison drama The Escapist, which had drawn buzz but failed to sell at January's Sundance Film Festival.
The price is said to be in the $1 million range plus a significant P&A commitment.
ThinkFilm expects to release the movie in the fall and follow a similar platform rollout as it did in 2007 with its Sidney Lumet morality tale "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead."
Brian Cox and Joseph Fiennes star in the gritty, stylish movie about a group of inmates trying to break out of a London prison. With a dual time structure that cuts between the planning for the escape and the escape itself, Escapist breaks new ground in a subgenre that has been tread such by movies as The Longest Yard and The Shawshank Redemption.
The Parallel Films and Picture Farm production is directed by Rupert Wyatt from a script he wrote with Daniel Hardy. Adrian Sturges and Alan Moloney produced; William Morris Independent handled the sale.
The price is said to be in the $1 million range plus a significant P&A commitment.
ThinkFilm expects to release the movie in the fall and follow a similar platform rollout as it did in 2007 with its Sidney Lumet morality tale "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead."
Brian Cox and Joseph Fiennes star in the gritty, stylish movie about a group of inmates trying to break out of a London prison. With a dual time structure that cuts between the planning for the escape and the escape itself, Escapist breaks new ground in a subgenre that has been tread such by movies as The Longest Yard and The Shawshank Redemption.
The Parallel Films and Picture Farm production is directed by Rupert Wyatt from a script he wrote with Daniel Hardy. Adrian Sturges and Alan Moloney produced; William Morris Independent handled the sale.
- 4/10/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- There's a lot of talent on view in The Escapist, though one wishes it were put to better use.
Rupert Wyatt's feature directorial debut, which had its premiere here, pays homage to a venerable tradition of movies about desperate men in prison searching for a way to break out.
The always compelling Brian Cox (who also served as executive producer) plays Frank, a lifer who learns that his daughter nearly died of a drug overdose; he decides to escape in order to help her. Frank enlists a group of fellow cons to aid him in the escape through sewers and tunnels. So far, so good. We look forward to an exciting adventure in the tradition of The Great Escape or Escape From Alcatraz.
But Escapist plays more like Memento. The time sequence is jumbled so that we keep cutting back and forth from the harrowing escape to earlier scenes of the men in their cells struggling with a typical contingent of prison creeps and bullies. The result of all this fancy intercutting is that the film never generates much suspense. Watching it is the cinematic equivalent of running in place; as the escape is constantly interrupted by scenes back inside the prison, we feel as if we're never moving.
Wyatt (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Hardy) tries to compensate for this inherently static structure by battering us with deafening sound effects and a good deal of bloody violence. In one scene, a con cuts off his own thumb as a form of deference to the prison boss (Damian Lewis). Another inmate (Joseph Fiennes) is a boxer who participates in a brutal boxing match. Then there's the inevitable prison homosexuality, including a bizarre drag parade and a rape that ends in violent retaliation.
All of this mayhem keeps us watching, but it would be hard to describe the experience as pleasurable. Cox has an intensely brooding presence, though the script is awfully spare in sketching out his background. In fact, we learn little about any of the characters, so it's fortunate that such excellent actors as Fiennes, Lewis, Dominic Cooper and Liam Cunningham are on hand to add texture.
Wyatt makes excellent use of the prison set, and the editing by Joe Walker certainly provides forward momentum.
Toward the end, the pieces of the puzzle come together unexpectedly and rather movingly. It turns out that what we have been watching is not quite as straightforward as it seemed to be. Much of the action is an internal drama playing out in one character's head, and the story turns out not to be so much one of an escape as of self-sacrifice and redemption. Seeing the film a second time in light of the climactic revelations would probably be rewarding, but it's unlikely that many viewers will be motivated to go back and replay the action.
The denouement to Escapist is provocative, but it's a classic case of too little, too late.
THE ESCAPIST
U.K. Film Council, Irish Film Board,
Parallel Films and Picture Farm
Credits:
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Screenwriters: Rupert Wyatt, Daniel Hardy
Producers: Adrian Sturges, Alan Moloney
Executive producers: Brian Cox, Tristan Whalley
Director of photography: Philipp Blaubach
Production designer: Jim Furlong
Music: Benjamin Wallfisch
Co-producer: Susan Mullen
Costume designer: Maeve Paterson
Editor: Joe Walker
Cast:
Frank Perry: Brian Cox
Lenny Drake: Joseph Fiennes
Brodie: Liam Cunningham
Viv Batista: Seu Jorge
Lacey: Dominic Cooper
Tony: Steven Mackintosh
Rizza: Damian Lewis
Running time -- 103 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PARK CITY -- There's a lot of talent on view in The Escapist, though one wishes it were put to better use.
Rupert Wyatt's feature directorial debut, which had its premiere here, pays homage to a venerable tradition of movies about desperate men in prison searching for a way to break out.
The always compelling Brian Cox (who also served as executive producer) plays Frank, a lifer who learns that his daughter nearly died of a drug overdose; he decides to escape in order to help her. Frank enlists a group of fellow cons to aid him in the escape through sewers and tunnels. So far, so good. We look forward to an exciting adventure in the tradition of The Great Escape or Escape From Alcatraz.
But Escapist plays more like Memento. The time sequence is jumbled so that we keep cutting back and forth from the harrowing escape to earlier scenes of the men in their cells struggling with a typical contingent of prison creeps and bullies. The result of all this fancy intercutting is that the film never generates much suspense. Watching it is the cinematic equivalent of running in place; as the escape is constantly interrupted by scenes back inside the prison, we feel as if we're never moving.
Wyatt (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Hardy) tries to compensate for this inherently static structure by battering us with deafening sound effects and a good deal of bloody violence. In one scene, a con cuts off his own thumb as a form of deference to the prison boss (Damian Lewis). Another inmate (Joseph Fiennes) is a boxer who participates in a brutal boxing match. Then there's the inevitable prison homosexuality, including a bizarre drag parade and a rape that ends in violent retaliation.
All of this mayhem keeps us watching, but it would be hard to describe the experience as pleasurable. Cox has an intensely brooding presence, though the script is awfully spare in sketching out his background. In fact, we learn little about any of the characters, so it's fortunate that such excellent actors as Fiennes, Lewis, Dominic Cooper and Liam Cunningham are on hand to add texture.
Wyatt makes excellent use of the prison set, and the editing by Joe Walker certainly provides forward momentum.
Toward the end, the pieces of the puzzle come together unexpectedly and rather movingly. It turns out that what we have been watching is not quite as straightforward as it seemed to be. Much of the action is an internal drama playing out in one character's head, and the story turns out not to be so much one of an escape as of self-sacrifice and redemption. Seeing the film a second time in light of the climactic revelations would probably be rewarding, but it's unlikely that many viewers will be motivated to go back and replay the action.
The denouement to Escapist is provocative, but it's a classic case of too little, too late.
THE ESCAPIST
U.K. Film Council, Irish Film Board,
Parallel Films and Picture Farm
Credits:
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Screenwriters: Rupert Wyatt, Daniel Hardy
Producers: Adrian Sturges, Alan Moloney
Executive producers: Brian Cox, Tristan Whalley
Director of photography: Philipp Blaubach
Production designer: Jim Furlong
Music: Benjamin Wallfisch
Co-producer: Susan Mullen
Costume designer: Maeve Paterson
Editor: Joe Walker
Cast:
Frank Perry: Brian Cox
Lenny Drake: Joseph Fiennes
Brodie: Liam Cunningham
Viv Batista: Seu Jorge
Lacey: Dominic Cooper
Tony: Steven Mackintosh
Rizza: Damian Lewis
Running time -- 103 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/23/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
- Ioncinema.com is proud to feature the rookie and veteran filmmakers showcased and nurtured at the 2008 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. This is part of collection of emailer interviews conducted prior to the festival - we would like to thank the filmmakers for their time and the hardworking publicists for making this possible.] Rupert Wyatt Can you discuss (in a nutshell) your filmmaking/directing background (your previous short film experiences) that have led you to where you are today...I've made about fifteen short Films, all varying in budget, length and outcome. Some I'm very proud of, others I would consider very good training ground but nothing more. Writing, setting up and finding finance for all of the Shorts was predictably hard but tt was the best and possibly only way I was able to cut my teeth in directing drama on a regular basis. Back in 1997 I
- 1/18/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
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