Sly Stallone plays Breslin, the man who the government calls when they want to make sure that their prisons are break-out proof. His latest assignment is at a privately-funded jail in an undisclosed location, and when he wakes up in there, he discovers that he has been set-up and someone has sent him there for a reason, with no chance of escape. While in prison, he meets up with Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger) and together they must come up with an escape plan - Hey! That's the name of the movie! - and find out why Breslin has been double-crossed.
While watching this movie, a few alarm bells will begin going off. Firstly, this is a privately funded prison, but it's never fully explained why its inmates weren't just killed by the people who wanted them there. Secondly, there's the appearance of "actors" Vinnie Jones and 50 Cent, rubbing shoulders will the likes of Jim Caviezel as the big bad warden, Vincent D'Onofrio as Stallone's business partner and Sam Neill as a doctor with a heart of gold, all of whom are clearly slumming it for the pay-cheques. Then there's the prison itself, which looks like a hybrid of a car-manufacturing factory and a late-80's Janet Jackson music video set: It just doesn't impose much of an atmospheric threat.
But then we have Stallone and Arnie ,for the first time ever in a movie, actually in a fight scene against each other, and that alone is almost worth the price of admission, even if it's all too soon before they team up. Yes, there are single cell organisms with more character development, but it's still kinda great just to see these two action legends on screen together.
However that only brings up another problem, in that Escape Plan is almost entirely action-free.
The last twenty minutes sees the two leads try to kill more extras than they did in Rambo and Commando combined, but almost everything leading up to that is just a lot of two men talking, making plans. Which is fine, but it's not what we came to see in a Sly and Arnie movie.