Film / No Escape (1994)

"In the year 2022, the international prison system is operated by private corporations. Criminals from all over the world are exploited at a profit. Prisons have become big business."

—Opening title card

No Escape, also known as Escape from Absolom or Absolom 2022, is a 1994 sci-fi action film directed by Martin Campbell and starring Ray Liotta, Lance Henriksen, Stuart Wilson, Kevin Dillon, Michael Lerner, and Ernie Hudson.

The year is 2022. Captain J.T. Robbins has been sent to prison for murdering his commanding officer. He is now serving time in Absolom, a corrupt and corporate maximum security prison run by a man known as the "Warden", and convicts there are sent to either survive or die. The island is patrolled by heavily armed helicopters and is home to two groups. One is the Outsiders, led by Wasteland Warlord Walter Merek, and the other is the Insiders, led by the Father. Left with no choice, Robbins agrees to help defend the Insiders from the Outsiders while planning to escape from Absolom.

Has no relation to the 2015 movie of the same name starring Owen Wilson.

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This film provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Most of the film takes place on a primitive jungle island, but from what we see of technology on the outside, very little of it is explicitly futuristic: computers are still mostly text-based interfaces (with some 3-D visuals), the guns are a little more stream-lined but still use bullets instead of being laser-guns, there are still helicopter gunships instead of futuristic hovercrafts, prisoners are brought in by train and tortured with electro-whips. About the only examples of truly future tech is that the Warden uses intimidating holograms, there are sensors embedded in cell walls to detect different types of thoughts, and DNA tests that can identify and predict certain personality traits. With a little bit of rewriting, the story could have easily been taking place in an alternative present instead of 28 years into the future.
• Accidental Murder: Casey, one of the young Insiders whom Robbins meets is doing a life sentence because he was involved with a notorious kidnapping where it is heavily implied that two children held hostage smothered when locked inside a closet. He tried to warn his boss against holding them there, but was ignored. Being a part of the kidnapping leading to this would have got him on the hook for Felony Murder.
• The Alcatraz: Absolom is a prison island where convicts are dumped to fend for themselves (aside from regular supply drops) with boats patrolling to destroy any makeshift rafts they can make for escaping.
• All Asians Know Martial Arts: The only prominent Asian character, the Father's bodyguard, wields a sword and knows some martial arts moves.
• All for Nothing: The mission to steal an engine part from the Outsiders' camp costs Casey and The Mole for the heroes their lives. They never get a chance to use the completed engine before King blows it up.
• Ash Face: Marek gets a variation of this after surviving the explosion caused by the Pocket Rocket Launcher, though it is clear that he was actually burned.
• Asshole Victim: Robbins, a US Marine, murdered his CO because he'd ordered him to kill civilians.
• An Asskicking Christmas: The Insiders are shown celebrating Christmas at one point, and during the party, that's when the Outsiders attack.
• The Atoner:
  • The Father and Dysart are both on the island for murder, which they admit they committed, with great regret. It's the reason both of them don't attempt to escape, claiming neither deserves freedom. The Father leads the Insider community, with Dysart as his right-hand man, seemingly as a way to atone by making other convicts into a good group (in sharp contrast with the evil Outsiders, who constantly attack the Insiders).
  • Casey, who'd been involved with a kidnapping which ended tragically for the child hostages' during a ransom scheme, expresses regret and says he tried to stop his boss locking them in a closet, where they smothered.
  • The Insiders' spy in the Outsiders frees Robbins even though he knows he'll be found out by Marek and killed as a result, saying it's penance for his crimes.
  • Robbins at first doesn't seem to care about his victim (his CO in the Marines) since the guy ordered that he commit a massacre, but later tells the Insiders all of them should ask forgiveness during the Christmas celebrations.
• Ax-Crazy: Merek and the Outsiders are a violent group making up the majority among the convicts, who wage constant war on the more peaceful, civilized Insiders for no particular reason (except presumably them having something to do), though it is mentioned that they raid at least several times a year solely to steal from the Insiders' food supply that they grow from crops.
• Baddie Flattery: Marek delivers this in spades to both Robbins and the Father, complienting Robbins' combat skills, and then later calling attention to the Father's book collection to mock him before trying to kill him.
• Bald Head of Toughness: The Father's bodyguard Skull is the only prominent bald character, and is a skilled martial artist who fights tough enemies to defend the Father even after being wounded during the Christmas Raid.
• Bamboo Technology: The Insiders wear armor, vests and helmets made from small logs of bamboo strung together for protection during raids from the Outsiders.
• Be All My Sins Remembered: When Robbins expresses respect for Dysart and the Father in two separate instances and wonders why they don't want to escape themselves, they respond in this manner.
  The Father: I know what they think. It doesn't matter. My wife's death was no suicide.
  Dysart: No, Mr. Robbins, I won't be leaving. Thirty years ago I used my God-given talents to make a bomb...a very powerful bomb...for money. I didn't believe in the cause. Didn't even understand it. I just wanted the money. Fifty people died. Now, I'm right where I belong.
• Beware the Mind Reader: One of the first things that Robbins' new cellmate warns him about is the sensors built into the walls of their cell which can detect their thoughts. He tells Robbins "Don't think."
• Big Bad Ensemble: The Warden, who runs Absolom, and Merek, who leads the Outsiders, are the two villains.
• Big Good: The Father, who leads the peaceful Insiders. He's a fair, compassionate man who all of them look up to. This is quite a contrast with Marek, leader of the bloodthirsty Outsiders.
• Booby Trap: Robbins convinces the Insiders they must abandon their camp as the Outsiders come to attack, knowing they can't hold out. They leave it full of booby-traps that kill most Outsiders when they enter.
• Chekhov's Gun: During his escape from the Outsiders, Robbins steals a rocket launcher from their arsenal and Dysart fixes it with Robbins' help. Robbins ends up using it in the Final Battle, culling a large number of the Outsiders with a massive explosion.
• Chromosome Casting: There are absolutely no female characters in the film. Every single character is male, even all the technicians in the prison control room. The only one that is mentioned is The Father's deceased wife, and just maybe you can briefly see a woman's silhouette in Robbins' Flashback Echo. Justified in that the plot of the movie involves futuristic prisons which in Real Life are nearly all segregated by sex.
• Decapitation Presentation:
  • Marek kills all the other gang leaders so that their individual gangs will have to unite under him, and then empties out a sack of all their severed heads in front of everyone, and says "As you can see, I've eliminated all the heads of state."
  • The Mole for the Insiders' knew he'd be killed for freeing Robbins and says as much, which is confirmed the following morning when Robbins finds his head mounted on a stick outside the village. The Outsiders then give the poor guy one final disrespect by running it over with their battering ram as they charge the gate.
• Disney Villain Death: After a brutal fistfight, Marek is killed when Robbins knocks him off the platforms where he is impaled by spikes below.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Marek is Laughably Evil and finds acts of killing and placing people in life or death situations hilarious. Apparently all of the other Outsiders do as well, or they're simply too terrified of Marek to not laugh at his jokes. He does not however, appreciate being on the receiving end of such things.
• Evil Is Bigger: The savage Outsiders number over 600, while the more civilized Insiders number a mere 98. To makes things more unfair, the Outsiders are also the only ones receiving regular supply drops of which the Insiders receive nothing. This imbalance is probably deliberate by the Warden as the more resourceful and organized Insiders are the only ones who stand any chance of escaping the island through their ingenuity and cooperation, and thus their brutish and violent enemies are the ones who are receiving all the support.
• Fat Bastard: The Warden is quite rotund and a ruthless, evil man. King, who's equally large, is The Mole for him inside the Insiders, although it's implied he did this more out of desperation to escape than actual malice.
• Faux Affably Evil: Marek is this in spades. He always acts jovial, superficially friendly toward other people, and is often quite polite. It's clear he doesn't mean any of it however, as he's a bloodthirsty psychopath with no principle except "might makes right" which isn't hidden at all.
• Flashback Echo: Robbins has several over the course of the film, remembering atrocities that his commanding officer ordered.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Dysart can make Molotov cocktails, fancy telescopes, and an engine out of discarded junk that floats ashore. He’s also on the island for building a bomb.
• Gladiator Games: Marek forces Robbins to fight one of his men for sport after Robbins arrives on the island, telling Robbins that he'll be allowed to live and taken into the gang if he survives long enough. Marek is suitably impressed when Robbins kills the guy seconds after the fight's started. He offers Robbins entry into his gang, but the latter refuses and escapes. The next time he's captured, Marek makes him fight Casey, a friend of his.
• Handicapped Badass: Killian the distiller is a one-armed man who is great with a melee weapon.
• Hellhole Prison: The first prison that Robbins is sent to is one of these. Prisoners are tortured with electro lashes for hiding small morsels of food, and sensors in the walls detect thoughts.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Robbins is saved due to these three times in the film.
  • Casey throws himself on Robbins' knife so at least one of them can escape.
  • The Insiders' spy in the Outsiders frees Robbins, while knowing that he'll be killed for doing this. He considers it the penance for his crimes in the past.
  • The Father dies in defending him from Marek.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Warden is left on Absolom with the Outsiders closing in on him and King... cut to black, roll credits.
• Huge Holographic Head: The Warden uses one to welcome and intimidate new arrivals to his prison.
• Inertial Impalement: Marek meets his (impressively bloody) end when Robbins knocks him off a lookout tower and onto a thick wooden spike jutting from the water below.
• Laughably Evil: Marek, a brutal gang leader, loves to joke and often does. His gang the Outsiders even laugh at all of these, though it could at least partly be from fear.
• Licking the Blade: Ralph, the Outsider Brute does this when he's in the "pool" with Robbins during their Gladiator Games.
• Meaningful Name: Absolom is a variant of Absalom, David's son in The Bible who rises up against him before being killed. Perhaps appropriate (at least in the warden's mind) as the name for a prison to house the prisoners who have rebelled somehow in other prisons. If one knows the name's original meaning ("Father of Peace") it doubles as an Ironic Name, as the island is torn apart by war with the Outsider prisoners frequently attacking the Insiders (who actually try to live a peaceful life there).
• Mexican Standoff: How the Outsider leader Marek maintained his position. Anytime his will is questioned or disputed, he reeves up his Pocket Rocket Launcher, which is the only real weapon on the island. Considering it's practically a mini-nuke from Fallout 4 in its pure destructive ability and a one-use item, if he actually fired it in such close quarters Marek would likely be blowing himself up as well as everyone else. But then everyone of the Outsiders knows that Marek is crazy enough to do just this.
• Miscarriage of Justice: The Father's followers believe he's wrongly convicted, and only was blamed for his wife's death over prejudice due to him being much older than her. He privately admits to Robbins though that in fact he'd murdered her and passed it off (unsuccessfully) as suicide, expressing remorse.
• The Mole: King turns out to be the Warden's inside man in the Insiders. One man in the Outsiders also turns out to be a spy of the Insiders, who lets Robbins escape, knowing he'll be killed for doing so.
• Off Stage Villainy: All of the generally benevolent Insiders presumably did something bad to end up in prison and then get sent to the island (Killian implies that part of the Father's sway comes from how they incorrectly believe he's the only wrongfully convicted man among them) but only the Father, Robbins (who killed an Asshole Victim), Casey (who was only an accomplice to an implied Felony Murder), and Dysart (a former bomb-maker) ever have their crimes disclosed. All of them express remorse as well.
• The Old Convict: None of the prominent Insiders Robbins interacts with are exactly ''young',' besides Casey and Stephano, but Dysart fits the trope best. He's the second or third oldest Insider, provides some Exposition (although he's hardly alone in that regard), has noticeable authority (although The Father and Hawkins are higher-ranking), has been a prisoner the longest (about thirty years), and feels that he belongs in prison even when escape is possible.
• One-Hit Polykill: Casey managed to kill two mooks with a single crossbow bolt, through the sides of their necks.
• Only Known By His Nickname: The Father is only ever referred to as this.
• Pelts of the Barbarian: How many of the Outsiders are dressed, when they're not attired in Post-Apunkalyptic Armor.
• Penal Colony: Absolom, a prison island where convicts are dumped to fend for themselves aside from supplies dropped by helicopter.
• Pocket Rocket Launcher: The rocket launcher that Robbins steals from the Outsiders and becomes a major Chekhov's Gun is the size of (and looks) like a high-tech rifle. It was apparently a vital component to how Marek maintained authority among the Outsiders. Marek would threaten to use its sole rocket to blow up everyone if his will was not obeyed immediately, and was the only weapon of any notability on the entire island despite being a one-use item.
• Practically Joker: Walter Marek is the Wasteland Warlord leader of the savage Outsiders, and he's nearly always smiling, cracking jokes, doing impersonations, committing casual acts of violence on a whim, and is a Faux Affably Evil Social Darwinist.
• Private Profit Prison: All prisons are private in the 2022 the film portrays, with the prisoners deemed assets for the corporations which run them. For the most dangerous prisoners, they have illegal prison Absolom, an island where they're dumped and left on their own except for supply drops.
• The Scrounger: Stephano who acts as a sort of Friend in the Black Market, collecting trash that's washed up on shore and trying to sell/trade it with the other Insiders.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: On the poster, Ray Liotta is about to shoot you.
• Semper Fi: Robbins was in the US Marines, having killed his CO for ordering him to kill civilians. He shows his combat skills heavily throughout the film, along with tactical knowledge.
• Spy Satellites: The Warden uses one to keep tabs on the island and make sure that no significant thermal signatures register that might give the situation on the island away.
• The Social Darwinist: Marek doesn't believe in anything except the Law of the Jungle as a basis for society.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Robbins shot his CO dead for ordering him to kill civilians.
• Terms of Endangerment: Marek calls The Father "Dad" even when he has every intention of killing him simply for amusement.
• Too Dumb to Live: Casey. Captain Robbins clearly explains to Casey why he shouldn’t follow him on a raid against a cannibal warlord’s camp. He explains Casey isn’t a killer and this is a killer’s job, and even states sending him back makes him the best friend he ever had. Casey follows him anyway and immediately bungles into a snare trap. He’s tortured, Robbins tries to free him, getting Robbins captured. After that they have to duel to the death and Casey begs Robbins to kill him, which he does. What a worthless load.
• Wardens Are Evil: The Warden is a nasty Fat Bastard.
• Wasteland Elder: The man known as The Father (a former Beverly Hills doctor convicted of murdering his wife) leads a large faction of prisoners who've been dumped on a desolate island. He and his people are devoted to finding redemption, living off of scavenged garbage, and fighting off the marauding prisoners who reject their philosophy.
• We Can Rule Together: Marek offers Robbins a "position on [his] staff" after One Hit Killing Ralph in the pool. Robbins initially pretends to accept only to throw Marek in the pool and grab the Pocket Rocket Launcher.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Robbins is terrified of rats. Unfortunately for him, the island is infested with them and appears to be the Outsiders' main food supply. The first things that happens when he arrives is to get mobbed by a swarm of them.
• World of Snark: Many of the film's characters are Deadpan Snarkers, but Robbins in particular. He makes at least one sarcastic comment in nearly every conversation, and many of the other characters are able to keep up with him.
• Your Days Are Numbered: The Father has progressive Hodgkin's Disease and no way to treat it, which will kill him in two months. This is why 1) he is trying to find a good successor and 2) he has no interest in escaping himself.