IMDb #244 Review: Papillon (1973)

Source: Wikipedia

This film chronicles the bromance between a scrawny Frenchman in coke-bottle glasses and a stubbly bag of testosterone named Steve McQueen, I mean Papillon. Our beefcake gets his ridiculous moniker from a butterfly tattoo on his rugged sternum, also on account of being French. Sorry, Steve-O, biggest movie star of the seventies you may be, but you is as French as a Belgian waffle.

The intro plops our heroes into yet another “inescapable” prison camp. As usual, most cons plot escape from the first step off the boat, with varying degrees of success–failure or death.

However, this penal colony resides like MRSA in French Guiana, the armpit of South America. And the pit stains are spectacular. The damp shirts, rotten teeth, muddy swamps, and exotic pests, all send a strong sense of the region. Namely, GOOD GOD, IT STINKS. Which mirrors my impression of the movie.

Masterpiece or whatever, it bored me. Some films are entertainment, some art…here, things just happen. Usually bad things, which then get worse. With no apparent message, unless you mean, “Rock-headed persistence might pay off, maybe, eventually, oh shit never mind.”

The third act drags like a keelhauling. Worse, it repeatedly indulges in Deus Ex Who-The-Hell-Are-You-People.

In one excruciating sequence, the titular meathead languishes in solitary confinement, lamenting his wasted life. Watching it, I could relate.

Frankly, I’d rather watch tranquilized film historians slobber through a doctoral dissertation on the symbolic significance of coconuts.

Recommended for incarcerated insomniacs, the Devil’s Island tourist department, and female inmates.

150 minutes.