Papillon

C

c.g._eads

Veteran
Major spoilers

Wow, what a movie. I had never seen this before. It was riveting. It starts off kind of confused and silly, but the second McQueen gets into solitary confinement, it becomes epic.

The most surprising thing to me, is how crazy filmmakers used to be! There are two scenes in particular. One where Hoffman and McQueen wrestle an alligator - FOR REAL, and then another where McQueen's stunt double really jumps off a cliff into an extremely dangerous rocky wake where at any second he could've been thrown into the rocks and killed. It was a reminder of how fake and careful we are today and how all dangerous things are done with effects. It really added to the movie because you knew these people were really in danger.

The movie's last 45 minutes is very unconventional and there's quite a bit of a twist. But the movie doesn't end after the twist. It keeps going. And normally this would make me angry but McQueen was so good that you didn't care.

If you haven't seen this, go rent it now.
 
Who hasn't seen it! I agree...go rent it...one of my all-time favs.
That & "Midnight Express" kept me out of prision (talk about being scared-straight!).
 
Excellent movie. I just bashed "long" movies in the Dark Knight thread....disregard all that....this is one of my all time faves.

Yes, no prison for me. Straight and narrow.
 
It was a very good movie. It was based on a true story...very loosely based. In fact, there are questions as how true the original true story it. It is currently believed that Henri Charriere (Papillon) took a lot of creative license when telling his story and that things attributed to him actually happened to other people.
 
Yeah, great movie.

The book is really good too. I picked it up at a used store years ago, bought it for a dollar, started reading it and didn't put it down.
 
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