These days, the settings depicted in prison break movies have become an apt analogy for the genre itself: hopelessly confining, tediously predictable and altogether wearying. First-time feature director Rupert Wyatt’s take on it, The Escapist, isn’t entirely liberated of those familiar trappings – but it does do an admirable job of doing something innovative and interesting with the format.

Frank Perry (Brian Cox) is seeing out a life sentence in a sweaty London penitentiary. But when he gets a letter from his wife about his ailing daughter – his first letter in 15 years – he resolves to take action. Frank assembles a rag-tag crew of fellow inmates: brawny ex-boxer Lenny (Joseph Fiennes), gregarious Irishman Brodie (Liam Cunningham), contraband delivery boy Viv (Seu Jorge), and Lacey (Dominic Cooper opting for a change of pace after Mamma Mia). Lacey is the new kid on the cellblock who is attracting some unwanted attention (read: jail rape) and gives Frank a shot at redemption.

This is a gritty, filthy take on prison life – no white-washed fluorescence or Morgan Freeman soliloquies in this jail. There are plenty of brace-yourself-for-the-pain moments, augmented by a convulsive string score from Benjamin Wallfisch that was perhaps just a little too harsh on the ears, at least in the theatre I saw it in.

It all hangs on the powerful presence of Brian Cox – for whom the role of Frank was written. It sounds like an ensemble piece, but the impression one gets is that this random bunch of would-be escapees is just that. It’s Cox’s movie through and through, and he puts in a compelling and mostly sub-verbal performance (not a lot of useless chatter here) as the alternately stoic and defiant Frank.

Most movies in this genre do little more than join the dots when it comes to structure. Claustrophobic tension and dread builds and builds for the first 90 minutes, there’s an adrenaline-pumping escape sequence – and then the guy finally breaks through and you can practically hear the whooshing sound as the movie deflates into a post-coital slump. Instead of all that, The Escapist, whose screenplay was also co-written by Wyatt, hurls us backwards and forwards in time – scenes of the inmates secretly plotting the escape become intertwined with scenes of the escape itself. It’s an interesting device employed well (it’s not as confusing as it probably sounds), and it turns out not to be the only twist in its tale.

Less successful is the movie’s final act, which slides into foggy metaphysical territory, nudging you and asking what it really means to ‘escape’, after all. In a sense it’s refreshing to see an ending that’s bold and different, and throws in a bit of Leonard Cohen for good measure, but I have a feeling a lot of audience members are going to feel cheated by how this one wraps itself up.

The Escapist opens in Australian cinemas on June 18.
You can view The Escapist movie trailer here on TheVine.