Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger once again put their decades old rivalry behind them and team up for their first non Expendables film together – and their powers combined have produced, for each, one of their better films. Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a security specialist who inters himself in maximum security prisons in order to then try and break out, thus testing their security. It all goes wrong, however, when the CIA ask him to test their not so legal prison for those the government would like to disappear, wherein he meets fellow inmate and soon to be buddy Emil Rottmayer, played by Arnold.
There are elements of both a really good prison break film and the sort of slightly cheesy action we would expect from the two powerhouses, combining to produce a really enjoyable film. The actual escape techniques run the gamut in terms of plausibility, and although some of them may not hold up so well under scrutiny they are at least sold to us in a believable fashion, and at times they are indeed quite clever. It’s always good to see these guys onscreen, and their camaraderie now compared to their rivalry before, which they admit helped drive both of them forward in their careers, is worthy of a film in itself. Jim Caviezel (‘The Thin Red Line’ 98) also appears in support, doing a very good job as the villainous head warden.