No great escape.

Rating: 6/10 (8 February 2011)

THE GREAT ESCAPE is another overrated "classic" that somehow seems to stumble along film history on its good reputation. Very little about it is great, as the title suggests, and so one sits through 170+ minutes only partly enjoying the company of POWs in a Nazi camp. A Nazi camp however that's pretty far removed from anything I've imagined, heard or read about German Concentration Camps during WWII, as the film portrays it as quite a relaxed and sunny condition. The characters we're in it for are a bunch of guys that tods along happily enough aiming to escape, and while there are several neat moments among them, one character seems unclear; Steve McQueen's Captain Hilts, if not a weird character, certainly an annoying performance by McQueen. Through the hours of planing the escape, the jovial and cheerful mood of the film helped me get through it, and as we're headed out at the end I felt disappointed, as the supposed great climax is somehow disjointed and lackluster.