Movie Logic - Escape Plan (2013) - Some Spoilers

Finally back from my trip to Indonesia and Singapore and ready to blog like a...well, blogger. One thing flying half-way across the globe affords is time to watch movies. Korean Airlines makes it easy by offering scads of free in-flight movies. One of them was the Stallone/Schwarzenegger vehicle Escape Plan. Conceptually, it isn't a bad idea for a film. Stallone is a security professional who specializes in breaking out of prisons, demonstrating their weakness. He is hired to test the security of a new "black prison" run by a private corporation working with a number of governments. Of course, nothing goes as planned. In the end, Stallone and Schwarzenegger (playing an ill-defined economic terrorist) manage to escape.

The problem isn't so much a logical one - although the film has a bunch of those - but a moral one. While Stallone is being inappropriately held, there's no indication that Schwarzenegger's character is anything but a criminal. The other inmate who helps them escape - Faran Tahir playing Muslim drug-lord Javed - is a certified dirtbag. During their escape, numerous guards are killed, men who's only "crime" is to work for a private prison company. Yes, there are a couple of douche-bags working for the prison, including the warden. However, as the audience, we are asked to cheer on a couple of criminals (Schwarzenegger and Tahir) as they kill prison guards.

This is a moral trend in films, usually action movies, in which cops, soldiers and other "good guys" are set up as cannon fodder for the "heroes" to mow down. In Goldeneye for example, scores of Russian soldiers are killed by Bond. These men are not depicted as being corrupt or secretly working for the forces of evil; they are just soldiers doing their duty. Modern espionage movies often show people working for the CIA (or some CIA stand-in) being killed by the heroes (like Knight and Day). They usually are operating under orders from the villain or some corrupt superior; but, they aren't "bad guys" in the usual sense.

I don't want to go too far with this. You could look at Star Wars and say that Stormtroopers are just average soldiers working for the legitimate galactic government against a group of terrorists...but, there is something to be said for guilt by association. If you work for evil fuckers, some of that rubs off. But, being a guard in a prison - even one that is run "off-the-books" so to speak - is not evil. And, helping criminals escape - as Stallone does - is not a heroic thing to do.

Complex or ambiguous morals are fine in fiction (since that is a reflection of reality). However, it is not entertaining to see some smirking "hero" kill a bunch of guys who are doing something that most people would support; like keeping terrorists off the streets.