Bullet Points: Jailbreak

“It’s the Cambodian Raid!” That’s what I was led to believe when I slunk down in my comfy chair with a couple of cold brews as my companions. That is actually a pretty good motivator for me because I’m a big fan of The Raid and I’ll take any opportunity to find more movies that share the qualities that I love about it. Let’s find out if Jailbreak fits the bill.

Synopsis: What started as a simple escort mission for a group of police officers soon turns to chaos as the prisoners of Koh Kla take over the prison grounds. A special task force [Jean-Paul Ly, Dara Our, Tharoth Sam] gets trapped in the prison and will have to fight their way out for survival. They’ll also attempt to protect a key witness [Savin Phillip] who caused them to be there in the first place.

• What’s happening: We’re immediately introduced to the bad guys in the movie. Playboy is the dude who is getting escorted to the new prison and he’s being targeted by Celine Tran and her “Butterfly Gang”. It’s not such a tough sounding name for a gang but we’re shown that it’s a gang full of women who use anything needed to take out their prey. Playboy has swindled them out of money or something and now they’re putting a hit on him within the prison.
•  Brief introductions: We get to meet the heroes of the movie as they prepare for this mission. For some reason, Jean-Paul Ly is on board to work with the escort team to get Playboy to the prison. It serves no purpose other than to get him included in this tight-knit group of three other officers. There is the possibility of a love triangle from the very beginning but I’m just here for the crazy fight sequences.

• Let it begin: The prisoners take over without much trouble. A guy fakes a seizure, punches a few guards, and the next thing you know, the whole place is chaos. It leads to a few fight scenes between the prison guards who stand absolutely no chance, and the prisoners who have seemingly been spending all their days behind bars learning martial arts. The crowning moment of the first act of the movie for me was the bathroom brawl that Jean-Paul has with a few unnamed baddies.
• Don’t get killed: Most of the movie is the same action scene over and over; the police escort team moves through the halls fighting small groups of escapees. While the action is solid and we get to see a few cool moves, there is nothing that differentiates any of the scenes from one another and there isn’t a threatening bad guy in the group. That changes when Jean-Paul moves in to rescue his female comrade from a triple rape and starts going to town on some guys with a machete. It finally becomes an action movie with consequences. When all they do is punch/kick/scream, you don’t get a good feel for the toll that it takes on either the heroes or the villains and sometimes all you need to do in a movie to embellish that is to have a little blood splatter on a person’s face.

• You know what time it is: Even the butterfly lady puts on a leather jacket when it’s time to kick ass! Well, a leather vest, but that’s close enough.
• Yeah brother: Jean-Paul must watch a lot of Hulk Hogan matches because his fight scenes are very similar. He gets the crap kicked out of him until he “Hulks up” and overcomes the bad guy with his newfound invulnerability. There is no shortage of Ly fight scenes in the movie. That certainly isn’t a bad thing as they were all well done, but none of them felt special in any way.

If you’re gonna riot then do it after you read these bonus Bullet Points:

• Celine Tran has had better, more intimate movies in her career. Trust me.
• “He was so hungry one day that he ate his own balls.”
• Literally every single person in this prison knows martial arts. Do they teach that in prison?
• The fat prison guard never stood a chance.
• The escort guys attempt to call their boss for help but he doesn’t answer. They immediately give up. Do they not have some sort of 9-1-1 that they could have called?

The Verdict: Jailbreak wasn’t exactly on the same level as The Raid but not many movies are. The action was good and the movie was pretty much all fighting once the prisoners escape from their cells. The characters, especially the main good guys and main bad guys needed a little something more. Jean-Paul has zero motivation for what he’s doing other than his vest says “Police” on it. Celine Tran is pulling the strings, and eventually gets into the fray herself but Sisowath Siriwudd plays the most intimidating villain in the whole movie. Again, all of these characters are extremely one dimensional but the movie is worth watching for the action and the simple premise. If you’re a fan of martial arts movies with break-neck pace that aren’t bogged down with story then this should be your cup of tea.