Review: Escape From Absolom
Blu-ray: Escape from Absolom (1994)
Captain J.T. Robbins (Ray Liotta) is a soldier convicted of murdering his commanding officer and is dumped into the prison island of Absolom. Here it is a matter of survival as 2 conflicting prisoner camps battle for supremacy on the island, as well as that elusive matter of escaping.
One camp is the sadistic ‘Outsiders’ led by Marek (Stuart Wilson) while the other are more peaceful and led by ‘The Father’ (Lance Henriksen). Unfortunately for Robbins, his first encounter with people on the island is with the Outsiders, where he must battle one of their fiercest warriors.
Suffice it to say that he succeeds (otherwise it would be a very short movie!) and his mission to escape begins.
Directed by Martin Campbell the year before he took the reigns of the James Bond reboot Goldeneye, Escape From Absolom (better known as No Escape here in the UK) is an action movie that moves along at a decent pace and always has you invested in the plight of the main characters.
Yes it is silly at times. Yes the dialogue can be corny. Yes the action could sometimes have benefitted from a bigger budget. Despite this, Escape From Absolom is far more entertaining than a lot of the bigger budget action movies released at the same time. Which makes it all the more disappointing that it failed to set the box office alight.
However, thanks to this great release from Umbrella Entertainment, you can watch as Robbins tries to escape the island with a fantastic picture quality and the added bonus of a few extra special features.
There are no huge narrative surprises during its 2 hour running time, yet it still manages to engage you emotionally and there is enough action throughout to have you cheering at the onscreen carnage.
A great movie if you’ve never watched it before, and a fantastic release for those of us who already have.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Making of featurette 1 (28 mins)
- Making of featurette 2 (6 mins)
- Trailer
- TV spot 1
- TV spot 2
- TV spot 3
- TV spot 4
- English, French, German, Italian, Spanish language options
Review by Dave (host of 60 Minutes With) from a disc kindly supplied by Umbrella Entertainment.