Breakout (1975)
Columbia DVD (region 4)
d. Tom Gries; pr. Irwin Winkler, Robert Chartoff; scr. Elliott Baker, Howard B. Krietsek, Marc Norman; ph. Lucien Ballard; m. Jerry Goldsmith; ed. Bud S. Isaacs; cast. Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Robert Duvall, Sheree North, Randy Quaid, Emilio Fernandez, Alejandro Rey (96 mins)
Although actor Charles Bronson had been in films since the 1950s it was not until the 1970s that he became a box office star thanks to a number of violent action movies the majority of which were detested by critics.
By the 1980s his stardom had somewhat eroded and the films he featured in were usually bleak, cynical, violent thrillers trading provocatively on his by-then well-worn vigilante image. Hence, the 1970s represents his peak period and many of these popular films were made with his wife Jill Ireland as a co-star. Although it is perhaps his partnership with director Michael Winner (for Chato’s Land, The Mechanic, The Stone Killer, Death Wish and Death Wish 2) that provides the anchor for the development of Bronson’s image in most subsequent movies, many of his other works are at least superior entertainments that play with his taciturn, tough-guy persona. His two films for under-rated director Tom Gries – Breakout and Breakheart Pass – are paramount amongst these and represent efforts to somewhat soften the hard faced actor’s image. Indeed, Breakout even rather ingratiatingly tested his potential talent for light comedy amidst the expected action. Thus without the misanthropic overtones of much of Bronson’s work, these lesser-known items settled into essentially mild action-adventure movies, still violent and entertaining but in comparison, morally unchallenging.
In Breakout Charles Bronson stars as a man-for-hire with a criminal past, living a meagre working man’s existence in the arid borderland between the USA and Mexico.
On the less politically developed Mexican side of the border, an American man (Robert Duvall) is arrested and taken from his understandably alarmed wife (Jill Ireland). Framed for and convicted of murder, Duvall is sentenced to a considerable time in an isolated Mexican prison fortress. He tries to buy his way out but the prison commandant (Emilio Fernandez) delights in humiliating him. Meanwhile, stateside, his wife appeals to Duvall’s grandfather (John Huston) who has, unbeknownst to her, a questionable connection to the case (which is indeed revealed very early in the film lest there be any doubt of conspiracy). When it seems to her that the people assigned to help her are ineffectual, she turns to Bronson for help in rescuing Duvall although she at first does not tell Bronson the whole story. When the rescue effort fails, she finally tells Bronson the truth and enlists him and his friend (Randy Quaid) to find another plan, in the end being more spectacular and involving a helicopter. To carry it out they need the assistance of a woman (Sheree North), but her sheriff husband is unimpressed by Bronson and feels that his wife’s moral honour may be threatened. Quaid is thus put in the unfortunate position of having to play the role intended for North.
From the start, the then contemporary-set Breakout intends to carry itself as a modern Western, deliberately evoking the South of the Border setting and conventions so beloved of director Sam Peckinpah in particular.
Although the film ultimately cannot match the lean ferocity of Peckinpah, it is intriguing for the way it seeks to redefine the Western in terms of contemporary action-adventures. It is obviously enamoured of its borderland setting as the kind of symbolic terrain where the remnants of the West have been condensed. Thus, the landscape and prison setting in Mexico are decidedly old and decrepit in look and texture. With Mexico thus presented as essentially trapped in the last century, the film’s action is a kind of retreat into the past. Herein, the scenes of modern vehicles (cars, planes and the helicopter) seem almost surrealistically anachronistic as the film repeatedly juxtaposes the old-fashioned restrictive world of Mexico with the relative openness of the US side of these borderlands. The film is in turn arguably about a culture and genre in the process of transition and part of its intended invention is to thus redo the conventions of the Mexican western as informed by the cynical moral changes of the 1970s. Despite this modernity, it is essentially an old-fashioned adventure movie hinging on a prison break and for entertainment value thus, it remains one of Bronson’s more enjoyable films.
In conjunction with its then timely, but rather unexplained political conspiracy overtones, Breakout is an assembled package of a movie, an entertaining diversion for the presumed mass audience but in the end, little else.
It exists for its surface action and for its effective helicopter prison-break climax as anything resembling plot complexity or character motivation is essentially glossed over. Though, by making Bronson a likeable figure it dissipates the rugged misanthropic aspects of his image and turns him into a kind of working poor American everyman – although he may be roguish here, the film is far from picaresque – as would the harder-edged Mr. Majestyk. The points it makes about the ease of Mexican corruption are treated as a given and no real effort is made to explore this any further. Only the dilemma of one man, a Mexican prisoner forced to be an informant, registers on an emotional level as one can actually feel pity for this sad man. However, Gries is otherwise intent to downplay character, even glossing over the expected romantic potential between Bronson and Ireland as she realizes her husband’s darker side. Indeed, Bronson and Ireland’s best films together as a couple ironically stress the obstacles preventing their fulfilling and enduring relationship and this is treated here as a convention of their teaming. Though Bronson proves surprisingly amiable, he is more at home in brooding, intense roles.
DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The anamorphic widescreen transfer is efficient and thankfully preserves the film’s original aspect ratio, in which the final helicopter / prison breakout scene is a truly unusual set-piece. The contrasts between Mexico and America are maintained in the juxtaposition between the Mexican prison and the ease and freedom of movement in the US borderlands. The desert and barren terrain throughout resembles the traditional Western landscape and the Mexican prison in look is distinctly of an earlier century, as are the Mexican uniforms. Despite some slow-motion violence at the outset and fine work by Peckinpah’s frequent cinematographer Lucien Ballard and the presence of Peckinpah cast regular Emilio Fernandez, the film never captures that director’s sombre quality of elegiac desperation. However, it does make for a visual presence throughout, well lending itself to the film’s ambition to be a modern Western. In style it seems more functional, however, not matching, for instance, the rugged endurance of Gries’ debut Western Will Penny. Nevertheless, some handheld camerawork has the right sense of immediacy and the final third of the film is a fine, lean demonstration of 1970s action cinema – ideal for one of Bronson’s more escapist vehicles. The final scenes have a bluish tint around the frame edges but little of this was noticeable through the bulk of the film itself in what is a very clean transfer.
Sound
The sound transfer is a smooth and efficient Dolby Digital mono, although in this mix the effective spectacle of the final helicopter-related sequences in particular is undercut by the corresponding lack of directional effects and specialized sensation. This film is one of those filled with scenes that call for a fuller and better sound dimension to any transfer in the age of home theatre. Nevertheless, the engaging score by veteran Jerry Goldsmith (appropriately enough another former Peckinpah collaborator) integrates traditional American Western as well as Mexican themes into the contemporary setting and adds tremendously to the sense of the film as a deliberate attempt to contemporize the genre. Some reverb may be noticeable in deeper moments but voices are always audible if a little flat – though their distinction from background sounds and activity is less forthcoming. Rather than full and engaging, much of it seems muted. The wispy growl of the helicopter is well used in the latter stages. Machismo, pride and desperation nicely filter into Gries’ use of male voices. Though the transfer remains proficient and the film’s overall aural design is effective, in this case mono ultimately nullifies the sense of vivacious adventure, making the film today much less of the escapist adventure it undoubtedly once was. However, its value as 1970s entertainment ultimately gives it added interest in the history of American popular culture.
Special features
There are no special features bar scene selection.
