Expected A More Engaging Drama

Rating: Null/10 (15 June 2015)

An adventurous, light-hearted story set in a Nazi POW camp during the Second World War, The Great Escape is a finely crafted, patiently narrated & ably performed cinema that today is hailed as a classic example of its genre by viewers & critics alike but all I found is a film that ends up running far too longer than it's supposed to.
Inspired from a true incident, The Great Escape tells the story of the Allied prisoners of war who have been recaptured by the Nazi German forces & are placed in a high-security POW camp where they together decide to plan a mass escape. But with jailers keeping a close watch, they have to be extra-careful so as to not give away any suspicions.
Directed by John Sturges, the film marks my first stint with his works and also happens to be the first film starring Steve McQueen that I've seen. The story does have moments that impress in bits n pieces but it fails to justify its 165 minutes of runtime. Cinematography is pretty ordinary, Editing is nearly absent & the soundtrack brings an adventurous vibe to it.
Coming to the performances, the cast consists of Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson & others, and it's actually their contribution that makes it a cinema worth sitting through. McQueen is definitely the coolest of the bunch, Attenborough also manages to leave a lasting impression, Garner has his moments to shine & they all are nicely supported by the rest of the cast.
On an overall scale, The Great Escape is neither a great cinema nor a bad one but considering its legacy, it did leave me disappointed, possibly due to my high expectations. The whole picture is filled with moments of action, adventure, comedy, drama & suspense plus the thoroughly filmed escape sequence & the following events are a delight to watch, yet I was hoping for a more engaging experience which it failed to deliver.