Escape and flight

Rating: 7/10 (18 August 2008)

Fun, optimistic prisoner-of-war movie about a group of Allied POWs put into a German camp exclusively for those who tend to try to escape. Thus, they try to escape, en masse. Care is put into the camaraderie, personality, and general friendliness of most of the characters, while showing in a couple scenes how nevertheless the imprisoned life is slowly demoralizing some of the men.
The escape itself is interesting, but the movie really didn't focus a lot on the watchful Goons (Nazis), making it seem at times as if the whole camp is given free reign to just do what they choose--obviously, making escape much more likely. Somehow I kind of expect the whole ordeal that this movie is based off of was a bit more challenging and paranoid, and I would have liked to see that.
Where the movie does get really good is post-escape, as the several characters split ways and attempt to get out of the country, to various results. Steve McQueen's bike chase is, of course, a famous scene, made all the more silly by the knowledge that McQueen himself is the one who suggested it, and all the more riveting because his own bike is used and he also doubled for one of the Germans, meaning in this movie Steve McQueen chases himself. One thing few prison or prisoner-of-war escape movies tend to focus on is the problem of getting back into the world after outside the prison walls--those movies tend to assume that once the tunnel is dug, freedom is pretty much a skip and a leap away. It's much more compelling to see the POWs trying to blend in, sneak through, hide, steal, row, ride, and fly their way out of the country.
--PolarisDiB