Under different circumstances, I’d say something like “They sure don’t make movies like Papillon anymore.” The incredible prison-escape film from 1973—starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, and directed by Patton and Planet of the Apes’ Franklin J. Schaffner—Papillon is a thrilling, larger-than-life adventure that feels like an old-school Hollywood epic shot through the hardboiled lens of 1970s American cinema.
Filmed on location in Jamaica, Spain, and Hawaii, Papillon is sweepingly huge, sprawling beyond the edges of its massive 150 minutes—fitting for a movie about a man serving life in prison.
But they are still making movies like Papillon—sort of. A slavish but condensed remake with Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek in the McQueen and Hoffman roles has been made by Danish director Michael Noer, and it illuminates both the power of the story itself and—perhaps inadvertently—the brilliance of Schaffner’s film.