Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Leofwine_draca A flawless thriller that makes me proud to be British. That's my opinion of this low-budget, shot-in-Ireland, set-in-London prison escape flick, which breathes new life into stale genre conventions and depicts its topic with unflinching realism. THE ESCAPIST boasts a tour-de-force performance from Brian Cox, in possibly his best ever role, playing a hardened lifer who's determined to break out of jail when he learns that his daughter's become a drug addict.The film takes the novel approach of jumping back and forth between time periods, starting off by showing us snippets of the escape itself and then jumping back to show how the plan started in the first place. You'd imagine that this would sap proceedings of any surprises or suspense, but far from it. The screenwriters have taken it upon themselves to deliver some fantastic twists and turns as the story progresses, leading up to a major rug pull-out that rivals the like of THE SIXTH SENSE in terms of breathtaking imagination.A supporting cast of some of Britain's brightest stars add to the on-screen shenanigans no end, including a scene-stealing Damian Lewis playing one of the most genuinely frightening prisoners ever put on screen – a masterful performance in soft, subtle menace. Great, too, are the likes of Joseph Fiennes, cast against type as a tough bare-knuckle fighter, and Steven Mackintosh playing a sleazy, drug-addled prison rapist. Gritty realism, a polished script that emphasises character throughout and style to spare: THE ESCAPIST is one of the finest films that Britain's made in the last decade.

Ashkan Azizi The movie contains two story lines, we see the planning to escape, the preparation on one line, at a same time we are shown the process of escape. While we accompany the lead role, Brian Cox, to a subway station and to his daughter as a successful escape, he gets killed back in prison. this is the place that the title of the movie, The Escapist, helps us understand what is happening. we are escaping with a man who is an escapist, a man who is long gone and no longer belongs in prison, he's back home and saves his daughter, the thing that is left in prison is nothing but a corpse who is drenched in reading a book over and over. The very last dialogues of the movie between the warden and him demand dire attention, to him the Warden does not exist beyond the walls of the prison while he is there, at least his mind is there. He is just a dreamer, long asleep in prison, long living with his family!

BOUF A thoroughly absorbing, gripping British film starring Brian Cox..not a household name like Ajax or Corn Flakes, but you'll recognise him from The Bourne Identity, Match Point…etc..and Joseph Fiennes; and plenty of the others in this cast, who have done lots of solid duty in countless British and American TV and films.. The Escapist is set in a prison, and is a salutary reminder that perhaps you shouldn't borrow more than is necessary from the Tennis Club Christmas Party fund, or carve up a senior bank executive however much encouragement you may receive, because you might end up in jail and if it's anything like the jail in The Escapist, woe betide ye. Brian Cox plays Frank, an old lag, who's in for life and is desperate to get out so he can see his beloved and estranged daughter, who is very ill. Frank with the aid of various fascinatingly shady pals, hatches a brilliant plan to escape through the sewers and tunnels of London, but will they even get out of the nick? It seems unlikely. There are so many evil characters within the jail conspiring to thwart anything they do, and the tension is properly cranked up. It's quite violent MA 15+. At one point, early on in the film I unpeeled a banana, and I was so gripped that when the DVD finished I was still holding half the banana, poised for a bite. Congratulations to all concerned.

freemantle_uk Rupert Wyatt is considered a hot directional prospect with his first feature film The Escapist being praised at Sundance and in the British and Irish award circuits. With a cast of top British talent Wyatt was able to impress and he has already landed himself the directional duties to a prequel for Planet of the Apes.Set in a unnamed prison near London Frank Perry (Brian Cox) is a lifer who keeps his head down and nose clear, avoiding trouble and getting into rifts. He accepts that he is not going to be released but when he receives a letter that his daughter is a drug addict and seriously ill he sets to break out for her. He recruits a team of prisons, Brodie (Liam Cunningham), his close friends who knows the local lay out, Leeny (Joseph Fiennes), a theft and lockpick, Viv Batista (Seu Jorge), the prison chemist and drug dealer and Lacey (Dominic Cooper), Frank's new cell mate. The Escapist tells two narratives, the lead up to the escape, with the team planning it and avoiding the prisoners and guards getting wind of it and the escape itself.Wyatt shows that he is a competent director, directing a fast paced film and editor Joe Walker was able to blend the two stories together. The scenes in the prison were grounded in gritty realism, in an almost period like setting, like the 70s. Wyatt shows that British prisons then to be violence, but people are not split on gang or racial lines nor like American prisons where rape is common. Men gambled library cards because it was the only thing they have. Though the bare knuckle boxing was a little less believable. The escape sequence was a bit more surreal and when you first see the film that Wyatt should have followed a traditional storyline, but it fits well together at the end. Benjamin Wallfisch also writes good music to the film and it was used to effect throughout. It is also so refreshing to see a serious British crime film seeing so many are willing take a comic or playful approach, like Guy Ritchie films and The Bank Job.There is an excellent cast and Cox really commands the film. I like Cox as an actor and it is refreshing to see him in something smaller. He is believable and is deliberately understated throughout. The supporting is strong, with Cunningham and Cooper being particularly good, but Fiennes and Damien Lewis obviously being talented. However, it was strange that a Brazilian actor was cast as Viv Batista and it would have been more believable and natural if the character was British (though Jorge was still decent).The Escapist is not Scum, one of the most brutal films ever or the Shawshank Redemption, but it is still enjoyable film in it's own right. The Escapist is the best British crime film since Layer Cake.