The Escapist (2008)

I was very impressed with The Escapist, a claustraphobic, edge-of-the-seat little thriller set almost entirely in a prison, and during the escape of the title. Brian Cox led the cast of British and Irish actors, including a cute Dominic Cooper, creepy Steven Mackintosh, and unfeasibly hot Joseph Fiennes, in a movie that I couldn't tear my eyes away from. 

The plot of the film is simplistic - a group of 5 men escape from prison - but the execution is spot on, particularly the way the actual escape is intercut with 'flashbacks' to how and why the escape was conceived. There's minimal dialogue - during the escape scenes there is next to none, and Cooper barely opens his mouth - and little background to the characters, but each is fully formed and their motives and allegiances are neatly sketched out. It doesn't matter why any of these cons are in prison, so we don't find out, this is all about the here-and-now and the need to escape. 

The flashback scenes gradually explain why Brian Cox wants to escape, and how he gets the other 4 escapees to go along and help him, whilst fleshing out their relationships and those with Damian Lewis' evil who runs the prison, and his demented, predatory brother, Steven Mackintosh. The scenes of the escape itself are fantastically tense and edited at a frenetic pace that had my holding my breath until the next flashback allowed me to breathe again. There were many little twists and revelations towards the conclusion, none of which I saw coming, and the massive twist that explains all that has come before is up their with Keyser Soze in The Unusual Suspects. A little masterpiece.