Directed by: Michael Noer
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Rami Malek, Michael Socha, Eve Hewson
Papillon held my interest until it overstayed its welcome. The buildup wasn't worth the payoff. I recall the original 1973 film starring Steve McQueen as Papillon and Dustin Hoffman as Louis Dega vaguely, so I have no point of reference there. I admired the performances in Papillon and the prison is sufficiently subhuman and filthy. We would like to see someone escape from it just to show up the villainous warden and his henchmen, but I don't know about waiting nearly two hours and fifteen minutes to see Papillon finally float to freedom on a raft.
Papillon is based on a true story, or a story believed to be 75% true when Henri "Papillon" Charriere published his 1969 memoir years after escaping from the vaunted French penal colony on French Guiana and then from Devil's Island. Some of the torture scenes we've seen in other prison films, and it is widely believed some of Papillon's story was taken from other prisoners' experiences. No matter because the movie frames this as Papillon's story, so why quibble with percentages of truth? Most biopics play fast and loose with facts for dramatic effect. Why would we expect anything less here? Especially with someone whose exploits occurred over seventy years ago and who few people know anyway?
We meet Charriere (Hunnam) as a career criminal in Paris who is framed and convicted of murder. He is sent away to French Guiana to serve a life sentence and he quickly befriends squirmy, notorious fraud and counterfeiter Louis Dega (Malek), who has money in his person (yes, I said in his person) and is a target of those he scammed in the past. Papillon will provide protection and Dega promises to bankroll his eventual escape plan. Dega seems to have money available whenever anyone needs it, so it begs the question of how much money this guy has stuffed in his orifices.
Papillon beats up on guards and attempts escape, which gets him tossed into solitary confinement for a few years. He survives that, and then plans his escape with help of Dega and two other inmates. They finance a boat from the outside and escape into the open sea in a suspenseful sequence. When aboard the boat, we are treated to the phoniest looking open water scenes in many a moon. I think I saw the same sound stage in The Truman Show, in which the horizon was actually a wall. But, this only turns out to be the first escape, and Papillon extends another thirty minutes or so. I can't say I was thrilled to see Papillon arrested and tossed into solitary again, basically starting over at square one.
Hunnam is a strong lead and we sympathize with him. Malek, with his glasses and bookworm intelligence, is a suitable sidekick. Their friendship blossoms enough to be reasonably interesting. The final escape scene and tearful goodbye between Papillon and Dega is effective, although I can only speculate as to why Dega doesn't go with Papillon. But, the issue is the movie takes too long to get here, and in the end the movie outstripped my patience. If we lopped some of the running time off, Papillon might have been a better movie. Instead, we have good performances in a prison movie that ain't The Shawshank Redemption.
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