The Great Escaper

 You know when a movie starts off slow – three shots of waves crashing in, a long shot of a man standing on a beach looking at the sea, more crashing waves, the man in close up, and so on – that generally the pacing is going to be off. There are ways to start slow and there are ways not to. If a movie doesn’t engage in the midst of its slowness, then it’s likely not going to engage full stop.

Which is what happened with The Great Escaper, starring Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson as an elderly husband and wife in a care home. Not only did it start slow, it managed to maintain this slowness for a good deal of its running time. Everything stretched out as though old age is all about slowness.

Jackson brings some life to the piece, but very few of her scenes are with Caine, so she’s left playing to actors whose storylines are barely filled out. Caine, on the other hand, pro that he is, manages still to make a very believable character even in shots where the camera just sits looking at him while he’s looking at something else – the sea, often; John Standing at times; a bus that he’s not waiting for. Caine must have wondered if anything was ever going to move in the film.

I find myself with very few supporters in regard to the slowness of the movie. An amazing number of reviews, both from members on imdb.com and from media reviewers, say that the thing could have been maudlin but isn’t. They ignore its chronically slow pace.

Well it could have been maudlin and it is. Even worse when poor old John Standing comes into the story and spends almost the entire time being maudlin, like some puppy without a home. He’s an alcoholic, so he drinks a lot; he’s an atheist, so he has nothing better than his present life to look forward to; he can’t forgive himself for something that he only had an innocent hand in.

Then there’s the chirpy black guy who’s lost his legs. He starts off being one of the most chipper characters in the movie. By the end he’s fallen into the maudlin trap as well. Good grief. You long to get back to Jackson, who in spite of her pains and illness and not having much longer to live, still gets on with life. (In real life she outlived her husband by seven days.)

Caine actually does a terrific job with a part that’s well and truly underwritten. Jackson, in her last film, does the same, and she has a bit more material to work with.

We could have gone and watched Dune II but having seen the first part some time ago I didn’t think it was going to be my wife’s cup of tea.

Ah, well, we got to see the The Great Escaper for free, courtesy of my wife’s employer, so in some senses it wasn’t entirely a wasted night.