Who in their right minds would put the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vinnie Jones and, um, 50 Cent (?) in a film with Vincent D'Onofrio, Jim Caviezel, Amy Ryan and Sam Neill? Surely, those two groups should have been in entirely different films. Preferably, the first batch would have made Escape Plan and the second group could have been in some serious film that requires some actual acting?
Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Jones are doing what they do best, which is looking and sounding angry, getting tortured or torturing, respectively, and generally kicking ass all over the place. They are good at it.
Vincent D'Onofrio is stuck behind a desk in a role that never gets off the ground, Amy Ryan is doing a lot of frowning and is against everything (especially when suggested by a *ghasp!* other woman), Sam Neill is a sad-looking doctor who only seems to remember his Hippocratic oath when Stallone asks for his help (what did he think he was doing in this tightest of all maximum security prisons anyway before?). Jim Caviezel, at least, gets a bigger platform than the other wasted talents. He is the bad guy in nice suit (and doesn't remind us of his Person of Interest character, like, at all) and he is good at it. That's something, I guess.
And 50 Cent has nothing to do except drive a car and hit a few buttons on a keyboard, his role made more believable by putting spectacles on him.
That all said, let me return to my initial statement, I was entertained, but the action heroes would have done that trick by themselves.
5/10
