Best movie ever!

Awesome Movie

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

"Escape from Alcatraz" was the last time Clint Eastwood worked with Don Siegel after a gap of 8 years. Most of the cast aren't very well known except for Patrick McGoohan, who is outstanding as the cold and austere prison governor. He and Clint Eastwood make for an excellent combination in the scenes they share. If McGoohan was hoping to intimidate Eastwood, it wasn't working! The low key approach works best for this film. The whole thing is very good, with a suitably ambiguous ending.Don Siegel's direction is amongst his best.

It's 1960 San Francisco. Bank robber Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood) has tried too many escapes and is brought to Alcatraz where no one has ever escaped from. He befriends Litmus with his mouse and becomes Wolf's enemy. English (Paul Benjamin) runs the library. It turns out that English is the top among the blacks. Charley Butts moves into the next cell. Brothers Clarence Anglin and John Anglin (Fred Ward) join Frank in Alcatraz after a failed escape.It's a nice prison movie with all the horrors that entails and an escape scheme. It's a bit slow and lacks a truly scary opponent. The warden is nothing special. Patrick McGoohan doesn't have enough threatening presence. Wolf is too soft and goes away for much of the movie. I wish more is done with the antagonists of the movie. Nevertheless, it's a good escape movie. Clint is at the top of his game.

If you're looking for a character driven drama or thriller in Don Siegel's 'Escape from Alactraz', you'll have to look elsewhere. Of course, fans of Siegel already know that the director of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' (1956) is more interested in lean, economical, and tightly constructed stories with slight brush strokes of character motivations and feelings. This is why Clint Eastwood, with his steely, cold eyes and subtle facial expressions worked so marvelously in Siegel's films - and he is excellent here as well. The story is about the possible escape of three men from the notorious prison Alcatraz near San Francisco. We learn very little about the prisoners who escape, except through their actions, temperament, and reactions to situations as they unfold. Each man wants to escape for their own reasons and while there is a sense of comradery and friendship, Siegel refuses to sentimentalize their relationships as most Hollywood movies of this genre would've. Overall, 'Escape from Alcatraz'is Siegel at his best: taut, mean, and tense.

"Escape From Alcatraz" (1979) was a decent flick; I'd give it a 7 out of 10. (And, yeah, I do know I'm going to get nailed to the wall by my film buff friends who no doubt can point out reasons why it would deserve a higher rating. This is why I hide behind an internet connection with these reviews.)Clint Eastwood really is a wonderful actor, and there are nice amounts of tension here. I personally think the best actor was Roberts Blossom as "Doc." I was also pretty surprised to discover just how much "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994) borrowed from this – right down to an elderly, eccentric prisoner nurturing a pet and dying tragically.To me, the movie seemed a little thin. Of the four protagonists, the only one we really get to know is "Butts," and two others are convenient Italian American stereotypes. Little was done to exploit Patrick McGoohan's amazing acting skills as the warden. (This was the guy who played Longshanks in "Braveheart" (1995)!!)It also seems thinly plotted. Little transpires beyond four prisoners gathering small objects to effect their escape. And if you've already read about the true story of Frank Norris, there are no surprises here. Finally, we do not even fully see the aftermath of the story for the one unfortunate conspirator.This movie also might suffer from … "genre fatigue?" Yes, it's regarded as a classic, but, since 1979, we've seen fictional film prisons do more with this kind of setting. One, of course, is the obviously inspired "Shawshank." Another is HBO's "Oz." I just don't think this movie would thrill a modern audience the way it did in 1979.http://ericrobertnolan.wordpress.com/