Top Ten Tuesdays: Prison Breaks

What makes a good prison-break? Complexity? Daring? Style? How many hitches one overcomes? I don't know, but that's ok, because a blog is the second-most subjecive thing on the planet, with the first, of course, being your mom. This list is in honor of the epic awesomeness that is Toy Story 3 (2010), which I saw this weekend. Spoilers Ahead.

10. The Great Escape (1963) -- So can we call it a true escape if all the jailbirds are either caught or killed in the end? Let's say it makes the list for irony's sake.

9. Midnight Express (1978) -- In all of our other films on the list, the escapists are kind of geniuses. Nice to see one dude on the list who's a complete moron. Dumb kid gets busted trying to smuggle drugs out of Turkey and gets handed a life sentence. He mopes about in prison for a decade or so before accidentally killing a guard and walking off wearing his clothes. Good thing nobody noticed the skinny white kid wandering around the prison asking where the main gate is located.

8. The Rock (1996) -- Sean Connery "broke out... down the incinerator chute, on the mine car, through the tunnels to the power plant, under the steam engine -- that was really cool, by the way -- and into the cistern through the intake pipe...." But that still doesn't explain how in the name of Zeus' Butthole he got out of his cell.

7. Chicken Run (2000) -- The animated film that inspired the Best Animated Film oscar-category. Also the prison-movie with more attempted escapes than any other I can think to name. Also the only prison movie where the plan is to bust out the entire population of the prison. Also the only prison movie wherein the final plan unequivocally succeeds. Also the only prison movie where the inmates are chickens.

6. Escape From Alcatraz (1979) -- The most factually-based escape on the list. Frank Morris really did disappear from his cell in Alcatraz on June 11th, 1962 by tunneling through the wall and leaving a paper mache dummy in his place. He was never seen again, so either he went into hiding or died trying to cross San Francisco Bay, which is certainly possible, as the bay is not only big, but populated with sharks. If Frank Morris were alive today he would be 84 years old.

5. Stalag 17 (1953) -- The consummate "Let's Dig A Tunnel to Get Out of This Place" movie. A group of POWs hides the entrance to their tunnel inside their quarters and carefully orchestrates their exodus in one night. Directed by Billy Wilder, so well done there.

4. Cool Hand Luke (1967) -- This film is awesome because it features not one but three prison breaks, all with varying degrees of success and creativity. My favorite: Luke pours cayenne pepper all over his scent trail so that the bloodhounds following him get a nasty surprise before they can overtake him.

3. The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) -- Edmund Dantes spends twenty years digging a tunnel under the Chateau D'If only to abandon it one night to sneak out of the prison by swapping with the body of his dead friend. He has the foresight to sneak a spoon into the bodybag with him so that he can dig his way out from underground after they bury him. But there is no soil on the Chateau D'If-- all of the burials are at sea. So as he's being tossed into the ocean with a ball and chain shackled to his ankle, he manages to swipe the keys from the warden in freefall. For a guy who spends twenty years to build a useless tunnel, the guy sure can improvise.

2. Toy Story 3 (2010) -- Maybe I'm just excited about this film because I just saw it, but right now I can't think of a prison escape more imaginative than this one. It has a great advantage: it gets to substitute all of the prototypical prison defenses for creative kid-oriented counterparts. Case in point: the security room is monitored by a cymbal-smashing monkey.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) -- Because Andy Dufresne (pronounced "Du-Frayn") is the only person on this list who busts out without any help from anyone else. Not even his best friend knew he was going to escape. And neither did the audience. Well played, Greatest-Prison-Movie-of-all-Time....

--Serge