Charlie Hunnam.
The production values are adequate, and the attention to period detail is on point, but “Papillon,” a new retelling of the years famed jailbird Henri Charrière spent behind bars in French Guiana in the 1930s and early 40s, plays like a footnote to the remarkable true story made popular by the 1973 box office hit headlined by Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. It's consistently watchable, thanks in large part to the stars' committed performances, yet it all feels aggresively minor, like a 1990s cable TV movie that received a big-screen upgrade.
The new production, directed by Danish filmmaker Michael Noer, mines prison-film clichés for storytelling fuel, with mostly effective results. It begins in 1931 Paris, where Charrière (Charlie Hunnam) did well for himself as an ace safecracker. He was living the high life, his devoted girlfriend Nenette (Eve Hewson) by his side. At least until a careless error in judgment brings the po-po knocking on his door “Count of Monte Cristo” style.
Rami Malek.
He might be a scoundrel, but Charrière is no killer, which makes his murder conviction a grim irony that wrests him from his main squeeze. (Hewson here looks like a cross between Rachel Weisz and Juliette Binoche, and she makes the most of an underwritten role.) On the treacherous transatlantic journey to the tropics, the new convict meets Louis Dega (“Mr. Robot's” Rami Malek, ably stepping into the Hoffman role), who's being sent to the clink for making phony defense bonds. It's clear the mousy inmate won't last long in this lion's den without protection, a notion Noer drives home when a burly thug disembowels the guy sleeping next to Dega to grab the goods the victim swallowed for safekeeping.
And so, a marriage of convenience is made, Dega's book smarts complementing Charrière's brawn. Noer is not impervious to the sexual tension between the inmates in this attractive hellhole, which leads to the film's most memorable sequence, a shower brawl that shows Malek and a tattooed Hunnam fending off deadly baddies in the buff. The generous flash of skin doesn't hold a candle to, say, the homoeroticism in HBO's prison drama “Oz” or the strategically edited sauna bloodbath in David Cronenberg's “Eastern Promises,” but the scene lets the filmmaker take advantage of the freedoms an R rating gives him. It also gives Hunnam a chance to show off the bow tie-shaped butterfly tattoo below his neck that gives the protagonist his nickname.
What Noer is not quite able to convey is a sense of menace. The director handsomely juxtaposes the lush beauty of French Guiana with the inmates' dire outlook, but one doesn't feel the tension of the characters' ongoing life-and-death scenario. Noer has crafted a photogenic prison drama that feels more like period dress-up than an immersive purgatory; even the grime is pared down. Some flashy staccato editing and unimaginative hallucination sequences aside, he opts against stylistic flair in favor of a more workmanlike approach. The result is an old-fashioned yarn that's easy to digest but quickly fades from memory.
Rami Malek, Charlie Hunnam, Roland Møller.
But the filmmaker also elicits strong performances from his leads, despite the strange gravelly voice and distracting accent Malek gives Dega. Much like Frank Darabont depicted the characters played by Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in “The Shawshank Redemption,” Noer portrays the enduring friendship between hunky Charrière and nerdy Dega as a love story between two straight men. This “Papillon” is more cuddly than tough. Spanish speaking audience will chuckle knowingly when Dega affectionately calls his buddy “Papi” for short.
The prison escape narrative structure that shapes both “Papillon” films, heavily reminiscent of “The Great Escape,” makes it apparent why McQueen was cast in the original. (This reviewer purposefully refrained from revisiting the older film, of which I have a hazy recollection, having watched it dubbed in Spanish on TV in the '80s.) Hunnam doesn't quite possess McQueen's sex appeal, but he keeps viewers engaged, especially when Charrière ends up in solitary, which momentarily reduces the film's pace to a crawl.
But despite running just over two hours, the new “Papillon” doesn't overstay its welcome. If anything, it should have been longer, so viewers could truly feel the passage of time. Even the later sequences on the dreaded Devil's Island feel more like a victory lap for Charrière than an imprisonment in an isolated fortress. Just when you think the film is gearing up for an elaborate escape, it rushes to the finish with a half-hearted coda that would feel more at home in a straight-to-DVD title. (In the days when Blockbuster nights ruled the weekends, this title would have been flying off the rental shelves.)
Charlie Hunnam, Rami Malek.
But even as it limps to the finish, “Papillon” merits the price of admission, thanks to its stars' screen presence ... even if most of it plays like a placeholder in between more intriguing projects for all involved. As end-of-summer diversions at the movies go, it makes do.
“Papillon” opens Friday, August 24 across South Florida, including the Classic Gateway Theatre in Fort Lauderdale.
