The Great Escape (1963)

Watching World War II action/drama “The Great Escape” -– based on fact, highly dramatized, three hours long -- has a new, unshakable tinge of sadness that did not exist during my childhood viewings. The entire principal cast has now passed, with Richard Attenborough and James Garner dying earlier this year. The true story: In 1944, 250-plus Allied prisoners attempted the most brazen escape from a POW camp ever known, with hundreds of minds and hands and three tunnels dedicated to infuriating Hitler’s military machine. Director John Sturges has made a near classic, even if it whiffs far too sanitized even for 1963. Attenborough, Garner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Donald Pleasence, and Charles Brosnan play the master escapists. Two hours document the dirt and work, the final rousing hour focuses on border runs. Pleasence’s forger is still my favorite hero of the bunch. The motorcycle chase with McQueen is exciting as hell, all stunts, no CGI. This kind of epic -– gifting character development and attention to process -– exist no longer. In Michael Bay’s world, it’s all flash and bang. Another sad passing. A-

The Raid 2 (2014)

Gareth Evans’ “TheRaid” had a thin plot: A SWAT team invades a Jakarta apartment tower to snatch a drug lord. Leading the charge: Rookie cop and to-be pop Iko Uwais with master hand-to-hand combatant skills and razor instincts. The close-quarters bloody violence astounded. “The Raid 2” goes city-wide and huge as Uwais is sent to prison by his bosses, tasked with befriending the son (Arifin Putra) of a crime kingpin (Tio Pakusadewo) to bring both down post-release. The job drags for years as Uwais enters the mob and learns that the son is out to get dad’s top spot via betrayal. Evans spins a well-known “Infernal Affairs”-like plot with epic kinetic force: He kills off near anyone from film one and ups the action to shockingly good effect with a car chase that tops any in years and a prison riot/fight that is a death ballet. Ditto fights set at a nightclub and kitchen. Welsh-native Evans just keeps raising the bar like an unhinged Tarantino. In a plot that eerily picks on the restaurant scene from the “Godfather,” the director/writer really shines. Uwais is spectacular as the silent hero. The Part 3 insider set up is more than welcome. A

The Sugarland Express (1974)

I marvel at Steven Spielberg’s debut theatrical film: “The Sugarland Express,” a fictionalized take on an outlaw Texas couple (William Atherton and Goldie Hawn) on the run from hundreds of Texas cops as they seek their stolen toddler, now in state custody to an old couple out of GOP Weekly. Dad (Atherton) is just in early release from prison when Mom (Hawn) breaks him out comedy-like to get their boy, high-jacking an elderly couple’s car. She knows she’ll hold her baby. He knows they’ll die first, but he’s too in love to say “No.” Even the cop they take hostage feels bad for the duo. Forty years on, Spielberg’s film vibes with wonders – dig the scenes where we follow a tense screaming match via radio from inside a car, the camera roving about like a passenger, and the way he mixes in equal parts America’s outlaw romance and right-wing NRA types who shoot first and keep shooting. This is still timely. Hawn is so fantastically in the moment, and Atherton -– he found fame playing assholes in “Die Hard” and “Ghostbusters” –- is pure American Guy, stuck between choosing life and his blonde, and, well, there is no choice. Wife. A

Escape Plan (2013)

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger headline “Escape Plan,” a prison thriller with the 1980s action stars stuck behind bars and wanting out, but I don’t mean that kind of “out,” I mean escape. See, there’s half the potential nasty fun gone. That would take guts. No sex here. This is bargain bin DVD fare with laughs galore for all the wrong reasons. Stallone is Ray Breslin, a guy who spends his career inside prisons, breaking out to teach wardens of their faults. So when the CIA tasks Ray with testing a black-ops prison for terrorists, he jumps at the chance. Sucker. The prison is run by Jesus –- Jim Caviezel -– and has the Terminator himself as an inmate eyeing freedom. Machine guns blast, explosions boom, threats made, and helicopters go low, but nothing can save the story’s eye-roll fake-outs from ridicule. Rocky and Terminator try, but no dice. The cliché where the nonwhite guy gladly sacrifices himself so our Euro-heroes can live … I wish it would just die. Just. Fuckin’. Die. And the guy is Muslim? Ouch. Long before credits rolled, I wanted escape. Dumb. C

Stolen (2012)

If Liam Neeson from “Taken” showed up in Nicolas Cage’s my-daughter’s-been-kidnapped thriller “Stolen,” the movie would have lasted 15 minutes. But he doesn’t. Cage plays Will, a master thief who sees life get worse after an eight year stint in prison. Case 1: Cops are on him like creepy on a Southern politician. Case 2: His presumed dead ex-partner (Josh Lucas) is out for revenge, snatching said daughter. The plot centers around taxi cabs. Lucas’ thug tools around in one. Will steals another. Why? No idea. Up against the always unhinged Cage, Lucas seems to have taken the villain role as a one-up challenge. After the prologue, he sports greasy surfer hair, a lazy eye, shaving scars, rotten teeth, an emphysemic cough, and a fake leg. He screams and growls every line. If this freak dropped into a “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, he’d get strange looks. Cage reacts by talking Swedish. Seriously. The climax of this Simon West flick one-ups the actors with a fight to the death not seen since “Freddy vs. Jason.” At an abandoned amusement park. Zany. Crazy. Terrible. Laughable. Grotesque. Better than the “Taken” sequel. C-

Time Lock (1996)

“Time Lock” is the kind of awful where you laugh not at what’s on screen –- OK, I did a bit of that -– but at yourself for foolishly waiting for something good to occur, a hint of brains from the folks in the credits. No doing. 

First: There is no time lock in “Time Lock.” Rather, we’re in the “‘Die Hard’ on a …” genre, where the unlikely hero (comedian Arye Gross) is a computer hacker sent to a space asteroid prison that’s taken over by a ninja-type (Jeffrey Meek) out to free his criminal mentor (Jeff Speakman). Robert Munic directs with a sledgehammer, every scene garishly louder than it needs to be, and every actor off his leash to just go nuts and make it look good because no one wants to waste film. Gross cracks jokes, flails arms, and does tricks. Magic, I mean. Not sex acts. 

A WTF scene: Our hero sets ninja guy on fire -- fully engulfed -– and in the next scene the dude has not a hair out of place. I thought of “Highlander.” Even for 1990s low-brow sci-fi fluff, “Time Lock” is a time killer. D

Lockout (2012)

Guy Pearce is the best thing in the ridiculously over-the-top “Lockout,” a “Die Hard” by way of “Escape from New York” salute that also heavily quotes “Star Wars” and low-grade genre fare a la “Fortress” and its sequels. Eye brows permanently arched and every line delivered with a wry tone, Pearce sells himself as an action star blatantly admitting, “I’m doing this for the money,” before we can argue, “He’s doing this for the money.” The plot: Superman CIA agent Snow (Pearce) is railroaded for dirty deeds and sentenced to a low-orbit prison space station where inmates are kept in comas. But, ye gods! On that very structure, the inmates have taken over and hold hostage none other than the daughter of the President of the United States. Only one man can save her: Snake Plissken! No. I kid. Snow. Also hostage: The one man who can prove our hero innocent. It’s that kind of film. With cheesy special effects, psycho villains so outrageously evil they hinder their own plans, and a free-fall climax that literally and figuratively crashes to Earth, laughs far outweigh chills. Thankfully, Pearce is ring master leading this big top circus. C+

Beginners (2011) and I Love You Phillip Morris (2010)

Ewan McGregor’s career never took off the way it should have: “Trainspotting” and “Moulin Rouge!” should have put him in orbit, but those “Star Wars” prequels – with McGregor lost amid CGI overload – may have spoiled Hollywood on him, or, actually, him on Hollywood. But I just caught two films with the Scotsman as the co-lead. By sheer coincidence, they both deal with gay issues – is McGregor going niche? – that would send bigot GOPers planning constitutional bans.

The real-life premise of Mike Mills film “Beginners”: Just after his mother died of cancer, his 75-year-old father came out, leaping head first into California’s gay culture before dying himself of cancer. Here, Mike is dubbed Owen and played by McGregor. Christopher Plummer is the dad. The film is moody, artsy and contains short diagrams where, say, multiplying coins equate growing cancer. It focuses on Owen recalling his emotionally cold childhood and then his 38-year-old self as he falls for a French actress (Melanie Laurent of “Inglorious Basterds”). Owen’s woes are not as compelling as daddy Plummer, the latter giving a shining performance as a man who seemingly has found the secrets to all of life’s happiness just as the ax falls. There’s anger missing here. Isn’t Owen allowed to be pissed? Dad was never home, out having dalliances. Even if dad was with women, that has to create a lasting deficit. More so, one wonders how Owen and his gal eat and pay rent, as he is a failure on the job and she never seems to work. A dog with subtitled dialogue is way too cute a gimmick. B

McGregor is the Phillip Morris of “I Love You Phillip Morris” which has nothing to do with the cigarette maker, but instead focuses on serial con artist Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey). Russell starts out as a married father in Virginia Beach and ends up in prison for credit card fraud, embezzlement, theft, malpractice and numerous prison breaks, one by faking his own death. It’s in prison where Russell meets Morris, and so, yes, this is a Jim Carrey rom-com-drama … behind bars, way queer, and based on a true story. Directors/writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa tell us so three times in the credits. “Morris” is funny at the start, but revels in mincing gay stereotypes and feels wildly contradictory, and overly silly. Carey’s “Liar, Liar” smirk made me wonder how anyone could take him seriously. He steam rolls McGregor, who misplays as a fragile daisy. Stabs at drama – an AIDS death – are forced and unearned. Critics loved this, a con all its own. C+

Bronson (2009)

Pulling from “The King of Comedy” and “Natural Born Killers,” the gonzo bipic “Bronson” tells the ultra-violent tale of Michael Peterson, a.k.a. Charles Bronson, a.k.a. Britain’s most violent criminal. Bronson (Tom Hardy of “Inception”) tells us he can’t sing or act, but wants fame. So he (successfully) chooses the route of unmitigated, pulverizing violence as his golden ticket. The destination: Prison. Behind bars is his world to play with, and that he does to the fullest extent for 35-and-counting years, and mostly in solitary confinement. Director/co-writer Nicolas Winding Refn uses a “King” trick to dramatize Bronson’s inner workings as the prisoner performs on a “stage” to an audience alive only in his head. It is fascinating and scary as Hardy gives a thundering, crushing performance. Even as Hardy as Bronson commits heinous acts fully naked and covered in any combination of blood, soap, oil and/or black paint, he can't not be watched. A mix of horror, comedy and blow-hard direction add kicks to the movie, which may only be playing in Bronson’s own mind. A-

Un Prophéte (2010)

French language crime film “Un Prophéte” (“A Prophet”) is shocking, brilliant, and focuses on a mixed-race youth named Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim) as he enters prison a scarred youth barely literate and sacred as a kitten. It turns “Heart of Darkness” quickly, with no “Shawshank Redemption” rebirths in the rain here. This is hell. No bottom.

Malik quickly buckles under the influence of a Corsican gang that runs the prison with absolute control, even ordering the dismissal of guards and delivered whores. The old, cranktankerous gang boss (Niels Arestrup) gives Malik an offer he cannot refuse: Kill or be killed. Malik takes the order, slashing the throat of a suspected terrorist with a gay bent.

This first murder, Malik’s introduction to bloodletting, is shocking, savage, and so “real” it left the audience shaking along with the teenager on screen. Malik falls deeper into the Corsican hole, until he learns to read, and speak Corsican, and then slowly, ever so slowly, turns the tables. It’s a hard task against his Corsican bosses, and the fellow Arabs who share his blood but despise his gopher boy lifestyle.

The film, directed by Jacques Audiard, may or may not be true. Web accounts differ. But it’s absolutely, fully and wholly unforgettable. And I had no idea where “Prophet” was going one minute from the next. The ending is perfect, even at 2.5 hours. I could sit for another 2.5, too. Such gem stories are rare.

My “Godfather” reference back a few sentences is no fluke. "Prophet" aims for the 1972's classic and doesn't quite reach it, but the aim is just off center. Malik’s descent from semi-innocent (his initial crime seems fabricated) to criminal to crime master is as methodical, gut-punching, and gripping as Michael Corleone’s. Rahim’s performance is so natural matter-of-fact, one forgets this he’s an actor. Arestrup is every bit the Brando-like don, an old man on the outside, a monster killer within. But he’s not against doing his own dirty work.

The violence is sparse but savage, maybe more so than any film I’ve seen in years. There’s nothing glorious about the knife or gun play here. Nor the sexual violence. A slashed throat gushed blood in thick, huge spasms of crimson red. It’s sickening. As violence should be.

The title is its own glorious secret, tied to Malik’s first murder and a semi-“LOST” gift that results. That this toe dip into the supernatural feels so utterly real is a testament to Audiard’s handiwork. For now, count this as my film to beat for 2010. A

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

"Cool Hand Luke" is a perfect film. Just two days before the great, irreplaceable Paul Newman died, I got the itch to watch this 1967 stick-it-to-the-man prison drama from 1967. I just sat in awe of his power.

Newman's Luke is, of course, a regular joe, or Luke, sentenced to a prison chain gang for lobbing off the heads of parking meters while drunk. In prison, the war hero and absolute rebel bucks authority and becomes a quasi-Christ figure to his fellow inmates.

The name Luke is no mistake, even an agnostic, as I am, knows the themes here. But I digress.

Luke escapes again and again from the prison, eats 50 boiled eggs and leads his crew in a race to quickly finish paving a road to let the "road bosses" know who runs the show. And like Christ, Luke suffers for his transgressions.

George Kennedy, who won an Oscar here, plays Dragline, a John the Baptist and unintentional Judas Iscariot. He gives a performance that makes you hate him, them fall deeply, hopelessly, in pity with him. Not love. But pity. And forgiveness.

Such a Christ-like story, film, is it not?

I could go into the mechanics of this being a film about the unbeatable human spirit in the face of oppression, and the religious overtones (which I always found over the top), but that's par for the course for these (those) times. Newman is what I truly love about this film.

The man was a god, and he's never been better than here. God.

One of my all-time favorite movie scenes: Luke learns his mother has died as he sits in the prison camp mess hall, and he quietly picks up a guitar, goes to his bunk and sings a song aloud to himself as he weeps. The scene is perfect. Literally perfect. My heart breaks for my own mother watching that.

The acting is unmatched, as tears stroll down his cheeks. Add in his final scene, where Luke throws back the "What we have here..." line from the wickedly good Strother Martin at his captors, Newman again is perfection. A+