Trailer
Plot summary
Frank Perry's sentence is life without parole, and after fourteen years inside he has stopped expecting to leave. He causes no trouble and attracts none. Then comes the first letter he has received in all that time: his daughter, from whom he is estranged, is addicted to drugs and near death after an overdose. He starts to think about escape and works out a way with Lenny Drake, a former thief and boxer, Brodie, his closest friend, and Viv Batista, the prison chemist. When his new cellmate James Lacey draws the notice of Tony, whose brother Rizza rules the other inmates, matters become more complicated.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Escapist (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Rupert Wyatt wrote the lead role of lifer Frank Perry specifically for Brian Cox rather than casting it afterward.
- A late scene was shot in the actual bascule chamber beneath London's Tower Bridge, the same real location that Wyatt's brother-in-law, novelist Boris Starling, used for the climax of his 2006 novel Visibility.
- Coldplay wrote an original song for the film that plays over its end credits, and the band later tucked the same track away as a hidden bonus cut on their multi-million-selling album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends.
