The Escape of Prisoner 614 is a 2018 action adventure film about two inept, small-town Sheriff’s Deputies who catch an escaped prisoner that they believe was wrongly convicted.
The lawless Old West has long since passed into legend, allowing all kinds of fodder for generations since to build ever more exaggerated tales of adventure in these rugged frontiers days. With Zach Golden‘s curiously bland The Escape of Prisoner 614, the time period is not the old west, though it seems pretty clear that many in the story wish it were. It’s a film that struggles to be a comedy, often well off course, mixing in some drama that feels unweighted, stripping it of any significance.
In the quite upstate New York hamlet of Shandaken, New York, crime is almost unheard of, leaving the two deputies Thurman Hayford (Jake McDorman) and Jim Doyle (Martin Starr) in charge of peacekeeping with not much to do. So, they spend time in the woods playing cops and robbers and eating pie at the local diner. Thing is, the county sheriff (Ron Perlman) is coming in for a visit and he’s not going to like a report that shows no arrests. And that’s just what happens, forcing the Sheriff to fire the boys, though they catch a break when a call comes in from a nearby prison. Prisoner 614, an alleged cop killer whose been in jail “since ’58” has dug himself a tunnel and escaped. The boys, thinking they’ve got a surefire way to get back on the job, head into the Catskills to round him up. Of course, once they do manage to find him, well, things are not what they seem.
Prisoner 614 is an African-American man (George Sample III), and when the boys capture him, naturally, he’s got a story to tell, and it’s right here, too, where the movie might have found its footing, dealing with a long simmering racial case of injustice. However, it doesn’t, instead wimpily tackling it all with quirky comedy and often squirmy moments of unfunny comedy. The boys fall right into the standard woefully inept police types, barely able to stay in uniform and fire a straight shot, their bantering antics never really hitting the marks like the should. Sure, it’s got potential for laughs, and McDorman and Starr have a sort of charmless wit about them that fits, but the story just can’t give them anything interesting to do.
Perlman on the other hand is right off the deep end, something he’s often very good at doing of late. Big and brash, he chews up the scenery willy nilly, gruffly layering in some gravitas, but it all feels false, the film really not sure what it wants to be. And Sample III, who has the most serious moments, looks like he’s in a different movie.
This is Golden’s directorial debut, having also wrote the script, and credit goes to some bits that work, including a small-town feel and a few solid moments that give the setting some warmth (just about any scene with Marla the diner waitress – played by Sondra James – is worth admission). To be sure, The Escape of Prisoner 614 is a film you want to like, the simple characters and easy-to-follow story loaded with potential for some breezy good times, but instead it all falls off the cart and ends up barely memorable.