After security expert Ray Breslin is hired to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Hong Kong tech mogul from a formidable Latvian prison, Breslin’s girlfriend is also captured.
The original “Escape Plan” which starred Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Amy Ryan, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Sam Neill, had no right being as good as it was. With a less than stellar cast, it more than likely would have ended up on DVD in the dollar bin at Walmart. Thanks in part, to a reunion of two of action’s biggest stars, the movie was entertaining and, at times, fraught with tension. Once the film was over though, I thought that was it, end of story, move onto a new project but when Stallone returned in 2018 with an uninspired sequel titled “Escape Plan 2: Hades,” co-starring Dave Bautista, I thought the world was coming to an end. While I enjoyed the original, it in no way warranted a sequel but here we are, a year later with Part 3, “Escape Plan: The Extractors.” While it has an interesting cast, the story and action are tedious, to say the very least, and by the time the final credits rolled, I hoped and prayed there would not be a Part 4. Only time will tell.
Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is a man who has spent years examining the reliability of maximum security prisons around the world. He voluntarily agrees to be admitted to the facility under the guise of a prisoner and then checks for weaknesses and after breaking out, goes back to the prison and shows them their vulnerabilities. When he is hired to rescue the daughter of a Chinese high-tech mogul who has been kidnapped, things get personal when his own girlfriend Abigail (Jaime King), is abducted by the same men and both women end up in a fortified prison in Latvia. When a man named Lester Clark Jr. (Devon Sawa) contacts Ray, he knows exactly who he is, the son of his former partner, Lester Clark, who tried to have him killed but failed. Jr. states that it is personal and threatens to kill both women if they are not paid a large ransom. Ray knows Jr. and quickly realizes that he will kill both women regardless of whether they are paid or not so he gets his team ready and heads out to Latvia. Once there, he meets up with an old friend, Trent DeRosa (Dave Bautista), a weapons expert, and they enter the prison with the intent of killing Lester and his men before they execute both women.
Even with the likes of Stallone, Bautista, Devon Sawa, Jaime King, and a glorified cameo from Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, the movie never invests the viewer fully. Watching a film like this there is no character development or story exposition, just an overall narrative that gives our protagonists plenty of motive to kill the bad guys. This is a throwback to the action movies of the ’80s when Stallone was in his prime and while most, if not all of the action is authentic and not CGI, there’s only so many ways a good guy can fight a bad guy. However, Zhang Jin gets to flex some of his Chinese Kung Fu expertise and one particular fight scene, with Swiss actor and martial artist Daniel Bernhardt, is, without question, the highlight of the film. Stallone and Bautista coast on neutral from beginning to end and offer absolutely nothing worthwhile to the story. While I am a big fan of both stars, it’s quite obvious this movie was just a paycheck for them in between bigger projects. Here’s hoping “Escape Plan 4” will never appear on the horizon.
Available on Digital 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray Combo Pack (plus DVD and Digital), and DVD July 2nd
