First Hit: This film is mindless because it, and its actors, are not believable.
Sylvester Stallone (playing Breslin) as a very intelligent, observant professional prison breaking consultant is not believable. He doesn’t come across as intelligent or overly observant.
Although the storyline has him looking with intensity around his surroundings, his eyes didn’t reflect intelligent observation as the script called for – I didn’t buy it.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Rottomayer, is supposed to be high tech financial wizard that manipulates the market through computer programming, was just as ludicrous. Again, it’s the eyes; nothing in Arnold’s eyes or the script had me believe his character. Although neither one of these gentlemen pulled off their characters; they do pull off the rough and tumble fighting behavior on the stage they are given – prison.
This part of the film is fun and you can tell these guys like working with each other. The essence of this script is Breslin’s legitimate business partner wants to get Rottomayer’s knowledge so that he can get rich. To do this he sticks Breslin in a prison that he cannot escape from.
Stallone is the same guy he always is; sad eyed, rough around the edges, grunts a lot, and very muscular who will end up punching someone in a film. Schwarzenegger, like Stallone is getting a little old to taking roles where he punches people to get his way. However, he comes off better in his role than Stallone does. Miles Chapman and Jason Keller wrote the script and it might have better to have younger actors in the parts. Mikael Hafstrom directed these two the best he could and my guess it wasn’t easy.
Overall: This film will probably need an escape plan.