Escape From Alcatraz 1979

Gotta feel for this due to the later emergence of 'The Shawshank Redemption' and even 'Prison Break', but 'Escape From Alcatraz' still merits its own props as a great film.

I love a good prison escape flick, shown by my love for those two aforementioned productions which do improve on the formula; TSR - one of my favourite films, fwiw - particularly must've took a lot of inspiration from this, I noted a fair few similarities.

With the cast, you have an excellent performance from Clint Eastwood. Patrick McGoohan fits his role nicely, while Paul Benjamin and Larry Hankin are the best of the rest. I would've liked more development for the characters of Fred Ward and Jack Thibeau, who felt a little tacked on. Elsewhere, Danny Glover makes his acting debut in a tiny, tiny role.

I found the pacing to be very good, sure the story I guess is obvious in terms of its direction but I still got tense and edgy whilst watching the escape take place. The ambience of the film is a positive too, with the exception of one moment early on where there's an overly on the nose lightning strike as one of the characters mentions Alcatraz - nothing major, it's a nit-pick and it's my only one so that's a big plus.

Interesting to note this was the final collaboration between Eastwood and director Don Siegel, take out 'Coogan's Bluff' and that was an extremely effective partnership - this 1979 release and 'Two Mules for Sister Sara' being my favourites.

Eastwood in another installment of the "man without name" series. Little is known of him other than he's dedicated, resourceful, a survivor and hates when people are treated unfairly. And as always you don't even know what will happen to him after his time at Alcatraz .And he's again great in this role.

Among the many "prison break" movies, this is certainly a good one. Even better when you realize it's a true story. It helps that they were able to film at the real island (which of course was only possible because the prison was shut down shortly after the escape). The fact that it's a true story also makes their escape much more believable. Otherwise it would be difficult to accept that they were never able to scout their entire exit route and still managed to reach the coast.

Movies of this genre share the same elements. Thus it isn't very surprising what they need to do. Countless times we have seen spoons that are used to dig, tricks to make the debris disappear and objects covering the hole. But that's okay. This movie is till exciting until the very end. And though it isn't exactly a happy ending (or is it?) I'm very satisfied to watch their escape. And I feel sorry for Butts. The movie lacks the profound philosophy of The Shawshank Redemption or the spectacular cinematography of A Man escaped though. In theory, parts of this movie also discuss serious topics like racism, friendship and the appalling state of the US penal system, but this isn't what makes Escape from Alcatraz worth your time. Such aspects are never discussed thoroughly.