Every now and then, a new voice in filmmaking will be heralded as "breathing new life" into a particular genre—meaning, of course, that said filmmaker somehow invests a familiar set of tropes and trappings with a fresh creative spark, taking something we might think of as being tired or old-hat and showing us a new way to look at it. That phrase has been tossed around more than once in the breathless praise lavished upon Rupert Wyatt, a young, emergent talent from England whose fourth film, The Escapist, premiered at last year's Sundance festival to considerable critical acclaim.

I admit that it isn't hard to fathom why so many critics would praise the movie for doing something new with its genre—specifically, the prison break-out film. It's not exactly the most flexible or complex of genres—after all, how many variations on The Great Escape can there really be? And Wyatt—to his credit—takes a familiar premise and makes it feel like something we haven't seen before. The movie's plot is simple enough: Brian Cox plays an inmate who enlists several fellow prisoners to help him bust out of jail. Wyatt takes that set-up and makes it into something more complicated and stylish than you'd expect.

And yet, as intriguing as it sounds on paper, it rarely jumps off the screen and becomes something truly engaging. Wyatt's skills are unimpeachable—everything from the music to the cinematography to the time-warping, anachronistic storytelling speaks to his considerable prowess—but what it adds up to is merely an exercise in formalism: It's a movie that exists to reward film buffs, and aficionados of the prison escape niche in particular, but for everyone else, its formal experiments are likely to seem cold and calculated.

Here's the thing: If you're going to invert and subvert the trappings of a particular genre, you first have to know what makes that genre work. I'm sure Wyatt has watched a lot of prison break movies, and I bet he can pick ...

 You have reached the end of this Article Preview

To continue reading, subscribe now. Subscribers have full digital access.

Log inSubscribe

Already a CT subscriber? Log in for full digital access.