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The Twilight Saga: New Moon
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A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
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Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
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London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Rupert Wyatt.
Cast: Brian Cox, Dominic Cooper, Ciaran Hinds, Joseph Fiennes, Damian Lewis, Steven Mackintosh
Description: Lifer Frank Perry is content to spend the rest of his days behind bars until he learns that his 20-year-old daughter is a junkie. So he concocts a plan to break through the panelling at the back of the chapel confessional then descend into the bowels of the facility. Good friend Brodie agrees to help and Frank enlists the services of bruiser Lenny, resident drug dealer Viv and new kid on the cellblock Lacey to ensure the group stays under the radar of effete top dog Rizza and his goons.
Country: UK. 2008. 101mins
Busting out: (from left) Joseph Fiennes, Brian Cox, Liam Cunningham and Seu Jorge
This prison thriller is a puzzle, says Rupert Wyatt, its first-time director. The Escapist might often be difficult to decipher but you keep trying as it's acted with resource, directed with imagination and mounted with rare skill.
One of the two central characters is Frank (Brian Cox), a veteran lifer reconciled to prison until he learns that his daughter is critically ill and decides to attempt a daring escape. The other is the old prison itself, a grim amalgam of the old Kilmainham Jail in Dublin and a disused factory. It could be a setting from Midnight Express.
Frank recruits a crew of younger convicts able to enact his plan, which starts off in the prison laundry and ends up in the London Underground. Joseph Fiennes, Liam Cunningham and Seu Jorge are the main men, with a new arrival, Lacey (Dominic Cooper), making up the numbers after attracting the sexual attentions of Tony (Steven Macintosh), the drug-addict brother of Damian Lewis's powerful wing-king.
For Frank, the escape is also a chance to redeem himself before it is too late. For the rest, it is a matter of taking up the difficult challenge he has imposed upon them. This is a world of its own: to stay could clearly become unbearable and to escape a consuming passion, however fraught with danger.
Wyatt makes it trickier for the audience by showing parts of the escape while constantly shifting back to the days during which the plan is hatched. The method courts failure but is surprisingly successful.
Cox, as usual, acts in such a way as to make talking about a performance seem irrelevant. He is Frank through and through, tough and vulnerable at the same time. The rest of the cast are fine, too, but the centre holds because of its lead actor.
The clichés of prison escape stories are many and varied, and there are some here too. But Wyatt's way of telling the story adds a fresh power to most of them. And the prison itself, with its shadowy and unknowing warders, its daily rhythms and its sometimes horrific set-pieces, remains in the mind.
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We weren't expecting much of this to be honest - a low-budget British prison escape drama isn't everyone's idea of a date movie - but it's actually quite fabulous. Brian Cox's craggy face gives little away at first, but his redemption in the end scenes had us welling up. It's tense, the editing is sharp and pacey, the sound is highly inventive, and best of all for a Brit film, the dialogues sparse. This is a curious story told visually, and with great style. Highly highly recommended.
- Frank Walker, W5
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