The Papillon remake is basically the emotional sibling of The Martian and World War Z set in French Guiana, but instead of Matt Damon or Brad Pitt cracking wise and slinging jokes as the everything goes sideways, it’s Charlie Hunnam as your personal teddy bear through the horrors of a French penal colony.
In terms of violence and misery, there’s nothing quite as traumatic as the torture porn of last year’s tense and brilliant Detroit, but the overall story could have been cloying in its sentimentality and inspirational phrases. Hunnam transcends the “enduring-nature-of-the-human-spirit” genre with his authentic reactions and swole bod. When he tells Rami Malek not to touch him after an especially tense brawl, it feels like Hunnam might be delivering the lines in 2018 just as much as the 30s. Even starving he’s a catch. Which is to say, the homoeroticism of this story must be a pretty rote observation.
Rami Malek may be the only person who could have pulled off some of the artsier hallucinations of this film. He’s the right level of weird for the role, feels a little like a more modest Heath Ledger donning the Joker’s face paint for a quirky role.
The business with France in the 1930s is lively and full and the hallucination scenes are simple and elegant practical effects that seem like the major innovations on the original adaptation (I’ve never seen the original, but my historically-minded friend who’s seen the originals and didn’t have a newborn to look after for the first time since its birth has and he provided some great commentary about the plot differences between the two films). There are some twists and turns and in general it just feels like a much less preachy version of that World War Two film Angelina Jolie directed a few Christmases back (Unbroken 2014) and a more decipherable version of Silence (2016) staring Adams Driver and Garfield.
If it’s not enough to see the strength of the human spirit as recorded by a heroic survivor of a French penal colony, go for the action and the bro-y banter and bring your girlfriends to see Charlie Hunnam’s abs.
