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Rating: Something more than just a prison setting film.
The entire ordeal narrated by the old Don Siegel from the first to the last frame does not rush to reach the escape of the title, mostly concentrating on the portrayal of the real-life Frank Morris, his psychological outline, and his interactions with the environment from which, theoretically, escape is impossible (not by chance nicknamed "The Rock").
Morris is the synthesis of Siegel's characters: like Charley Varrick from the beautiful film of the same name, a shrewd man whose superior intelligence allows him to quietly observe what his icy eyes filter (from cellmates, with some of whom he fraternizes, to the guards, to the prison walls, up to the four walls of his solitary confinement cell). A figure without a past and family, as he says himself: characteristics that, however, indubitably make him a winner, giving him the possibility of daring the undoable without attracting attention, and escaping from Alcatraz rewarded by grace, through strategies carefully studied to the smallest details, but also by means of fortune.
If the setting fits perfectly within the prison genre, following its known types and conventions (the harshness of the institutions, the arrogance of the wardens, the sadism of the director, etc.), the very preparation of the escape is the focus of a second cathartic part, with a pure and sparse staging, every time the camera lingers on gestures and details, because this is what matters.
In "Escape from Alcatraz," within the heart of classic and traditional American cinema, the poor, modern, and unmistakable style of the most ecstatic of filmmakers, Robert Bresson, particularly in "A Man Escaped," ventures.
And in his last collaboration with his friend Siegel, Clint Eastwood delivers one of his best performances, whose controlled coldness, never so in tune and functional to the context, finds the winning path of a silent, monastic, tight, indispensable work.
Frank Morris is the "siegelian" hero par excellence: a man seemingly submissive, bowed, "integrated," but who in reality pretends to accept the rules of the game only to make his rebellion even more distinct and unequivocal. Escape from Alcatraz is a dry, measured film, completely devoid of frills (as in Siegel's style), yet rich and cinematically impeccable. The last collaboration between Eastwood and master Siegel is perhaps the highest result of their artistic alliance (along with "The Beguiled" and "Dirty Harry"), and overall, an timeless masterpiece.
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