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Ashdoc's review---
This review has spoilers
If there were any doubts as to who is the bigger star among the two of them , then this movie makes it all too clear who was and is the real action king of Hollywood....
......For Arnold Schwarzenegger's role is less important as Sylvester Stallone gets the meatier and chunkier role in the film....
He ( Stallone who else ) is a hero with a quirk and even a more quirkier job---he spends much of his time in prisons as a prisoner to study weaknesses in their security systems and finding an escape route---which he inevitably always does , thus exposing loopholes in their much vaunted security....
He has even written a book on prison security , and is indeed regarded as an authority on the macabre art of jailbreak....or rather on how to foolproof jail security....
Naturally his quirky profession earns him enemies , and they want him out of the way....
And now Stallone is offered a very high paying job of escaping from a secret high security prison....err.....or rather finding loopholes in it's security....
From the way it is presented to Stallone , it is most obviously a set up---and you wonder why an intelligent man like him took up the risky proposition....??
.....The answer to this question is very easy you stupid , for if he did not accept then how will the movie get the adrenaline packed action you want ??
So he agrees to go to prison so that you can get the bang for your buck....
As expected , everything goes wrong and Stallone finds himself in a glass cell in a prison in the middle of nowhere with masked guards and with his identity stolen from him.....
And here he finds his ally---Arnold Schwarzenegger who else....and Stallone promises Arnold to take him with him when he escapes....
But can he.....i mean....can he escape....??
Because the odds are truely stacked against him this time....
Or are they ??
The director is stupid enough to think that he can make us believe that this kind of place ( I mean where Stallone and Arnold are kept as prisoners ) would give no idea to them as to where they are....and he actually shows them having no idea of that....
....And it does come as a surprise to the audience as to where they are when it is revealed to them....
But actually these kind of prisons are remarkably unsteady in real life and one wonders how come the prison manages to remain still , and thus not reveal to the prisoners as to where they are....
You will have to give the director that much cinematic liberty what else....
Coming to the movie , there are quite a few fights in the movie but what is more entertaining is the banter between the two Hollywood superstars....
Example---Stallone throws a lazy ineffective punch at Arnold and Arnold says to him '' You fight like a vegetarian '' !! Having spent a lifetime convincing people of the effeteness that vegetarianism brings, I couldn't agree more !!
But what about the action ??
To be honest , it cannot be called fantastic and the two aging action heroes show their age in some action scenes....
Of course , their hefty muscles are still there in place and so is Stallone's drawl....
Jim Caviezel looks like he is hiding a menacingly psychotic persona behind his icy cool demeanor as warden of the jail....
Hollywood seems to have newly got the muslim appeasement bug from somewhere where it must be prevalent ( Bollywood where else ) , and shows muslim guys helping out the two megastars escape from prison at the cost of their own lives !! Now would you forgive me for wondering whether I was watching a Bollywood movie where such muslim 'sacrifices' are now 'done to death' scenes.....
The plans and techniques of prison escape are interesting however , and give you some insight as to how real prisoners who escaped from prisons may have planned their escape....
On the ' high tech ' front , the film does score as it shows some high end technology in action....
But in the end , it does not match upto the action quotient of films like Commando or Rambo in which these two stars have acted.....
Waiting for a better Stallone-Schwarzenegger film....the aging warhorses still have got some steam left in them I feel.....
Verdict---Okay .
Last edited by ashdoc; 10-23-13 at 09:12 AM.
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