Jailbreak

Year: 2017
Director: Jimmy Henderson
Cast: Jean-Paul Ly, Dara Our, Tharoth Sam, Celine Tran, Savin Phillip, Dara Phang


Plot: Three cops and a French-Cambodian exchange cop are assigned to escort a convicted criminal named Playboy to prison. However, they end up getting trapped in the prison when a riot breaks out, set in motion by the leader of the Butterfly gang, who wants Playboy dead before he can expose them.


Review: One look at the film's trailer and it's obvious that Jailbreak was inspired by Asian actioners like The Raid and Ong Bak. While the film isn't quite as good as those films, it still manages to deliver some excitement throughout its 92 minute runtime.

The premise is simple enough; four cops have to protect a white collar criminal from being killed by dozens of prisoners who have been let loose by another prisoner hired by Madame Butterfly, seeking to silence her former associate before he talks. Thus begins the difficult ordeal of the cops who have to fight for their lives against impossible odds. 

I must note that unlike The Raid and Ong Bak, Jailbreak is actually quite light hearted in its approach. Director Jimmy Henderson makes several attempts to ellicit laughter from his audience, mostly by having the criminal Playboy run away in fear and do all sorts of things to stay alive. There's also a Hannibal Lecter-like convict who breaks out and starts chewing everyone he gets his hands on. Literally. It's clearly an attempt at comedy, though not all of them work that well.

As for the action, there are some really well choreographed scraps between the four cops and the prisoners, though the ones that really stand out are the one on one fights, the best one being Tharoth Sam versus Celine Tran. Sam nearly steals the show with her skills which are reminiscent of Tony Jaa in this fight alone. Lead star Jean-Paul Ly also impresses every time he is in a fight with anyone. The acting however is a letdown, as the quality ranges from wooden to just average.

Henderson's direction is also rather uneven as the film loses momentum in the second half, whenever he tries to serve the plot and stop the action. In fact, Henderson should be raising the tension and intensity towards the end, but fails to do so properly, resulting in a rather unsatisfactory ending. 

All in all, while Jailbreak doesn't have the intensity of The Raid, nor the inventiveness of Ong Bak, it still is a slightly more than decent attempt at delivering an action vehicle from South East Asia. Personally I'd like to see more from these guys in the future. (6.5/10)