Escape From Alcatraz
by Don Siegel
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Clint Eastwood, Fred Ward, Jack Thibeau, Patrick McGoohan, Roberts BlossomDirector: Don Siegel
Brand: EASTWOOD,CLINT
Cinematographer: Bruce Surtees
Producer: Don Siegel
Editor: Ferris Webster
Producer: Fritz Manes
Producer: Robert Daley
Writer: J. Campbell Bruce
Writer: Richard Tuggle
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-03-09
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Escape From Alcatraz
Movie Review: Worth Seeing Once
Summary: 3 Stars
There are many reviews of this movie here that are quite odd. I haven't seen so many zero ratings by other readers for the reviews as in "Helpful" or not. Many of them appear to have been written by teenagers. They are short and don't say much at all.
As escape movies go, this one is okay, but using them as for comparison, this certainly isn't the best one. It's not nearly on the level of "The Great Escape."
I agree with the other reviewers who noticed it moves slowly.
One of the other problems I had with it is the lack of problems to overcome along the way to the escape attempt. There were no real setbacks as in other escape movies in the process of setting up the escape. They didn't get caught and have to start over, for example (cf. Colditz). None of the escape team were injured, killed, or replaced beforehand. There is no mole. There isn't a lot of tension or difference of opinion between the members of the escape team, or controversy deciding who gets to be part of the team.
Then, during the actual escape attempt, there really weren't any great new challenges to overcome where they had to adapt to unexpected events or circumstances. Sure there is drama and some suspenseful music in EFA, but there could have been so much more, and there will be if/when there is a remake.
Clint Eastwood plays his popular persona in Escape from Alcatraz that he played in numerous popular Westerns and police movies. Tough, reserved, independent, leader. He's more restrained than he was in the Dirty Harry movies he did a few years before this in the 1970s.
And that's one thing I liked about EFA: its restraint. There is some prison violence, but not that much considering how extreme the prison and its inmates. The warden is mean but not as vicious as some prison wardens in other prison movies (Midnight Express).
The cast of characters:
* a prison escape artist (Eastwood)
* a mean prison warden
* a middle-aged white inmate who likes to paint
* a cool "senior" black inmate who works at the library
* a spurned "gay" inmate who seeks revenge on Morris (Eastwood)
* a middle-aged inmate who has a pet mouse
* a few con men who become part of the escape team
* an inmate who is Morris's "neighbor"
* a few other inmates and guards
The characters aren't that interesting.
I would suggest you see it, but it's a movie to rent, not buy. I enjoyed it the first time.
Summary of Escape From Alcatraz
Filmed on location on Alcatraz Island, this is an account of the only three men ever to escape from this maximum security prison.Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG
Release Date: 28-MAR-2006
Media Type: DVD
One of Clint Eastwood's two most important filmmaking mentors was Don Siegel (the other was Sergio Leone), who directed Eastwood in Dirty Harry, Coogan's Bluff, Two Mules for Sister Sara, and this enigmatic, 1979 drama based on a true story about an escape from the island prison of Alcatraz. Eastwood plays a new convict who enters into a kind of mind game with the chilly warden (Patrick McGoohan) and organizes a break leading into the treacherous waters off San Francisco. As jailbird movies go, this isn't just a grotty, unpleasant experience but a character-driven work with some haunting twists. --Tom Keogh
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