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***spoilers***


I know it's trouble to go to a movie's page and say the movie is terrible, but in this case it has to be said. First of all it is NOT thrilling whatsoever. Secondly, the amount of loud banging not alarming the guards, the speed of the tunneling, the convenient master key, the insanely sharp file, totally unguarded tunnels. I tried to get into this movie, and trust me I have a great deal of patience for a lot of different movies, but at every turn it was unrealistic. If it was true to the events, this should be a movie about how poorly designed and guarded this prison was. And the lingering shots were not artistic,they were distracting. There are a lot of good prison, escape, and prison escape movies out there; this one does not deserve to be counted as one of the best. I don't hate this movie, there is an interesting moral dilemma in the last 5 minutes, but seriously I do not see what people get so excited about, very overrated. (4/10)

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Overrated is your opinion. IMO this is one of the best movies ever made. It is also most realistic prison movie ever. So, you are wrong and BTW ignored.

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A man escaped

My TOP 200 Movies -http://www.imdb.com/list/iFa7p7uwsr8/

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I agree. The tons of noise the prisoners made was hard for me to swallow, and the fact that Gaspard didn't think to tell his friends to wait until he was released is a point that was also unaccounted for. I did like the detail, suspense, and chemistry, but ultimately Bresson's "A Man Escaped" is the French prison movie I will turn to instead of this great one time experiment. 5/10



My attempt to list the best movies of all-time: http://www.themoviecanon.blogspot.com

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I need to jump on here and say that those who have never been to prison have no idea how loud it really is in there. The doors banging open and closed all day long, televisions blaring, inmates and officers yelling, not to mention various work going on all around inside and out in the yard. Oh and the toilets flushing are also extremely loud because of old plumbing and the sheer size of the place so there are lots of them flushing at same time. How do I know this? Personal experience. Those who haven't been there really aren't in a position to comment on what's realistic or not. However, I did think there was something off about the fact that at first the officers were doing cell checks every 15 minutes and then suddenly they are digging all night and it's all fine. That's wrong since they are always doing count every hour or so. I really doubt that French prisons are any different particularly since they mentioned previous escapes by Roland and others. During the night you will inevitably have officers coming by asking u to shake or move something pretty regularly. There's no way they could be digging all night without someone coming in.

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I'll agree with you that the loud banging doesn't alert the guards, but this movie is fantastic.

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i'm five years late, but ... agreed!

it would be a perfect movie for me if it was just a bit shorter.

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Ultimately the sound didn't matter because of the twist, but it still bothered me the first time I saw it.

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this is the most liked review on letterboxd:

"It's nice that they hired only deaf prison guards"


the movie is definitely asking you to believe something fairly unbelievable. it wasn't a showstopper for me at all, mostly because the rest of the movie is so interesting and effective.

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