Papillon is a 2017 biographical drama film directed by Michael Noer that stars Charlie Hunnam as wrongfully imprisoned Henri Charrière (‘Papillon’) and Rami Malek as Louis Dega, Papillon’s friend who helped him escape the prison. Papillon (2017) movie review
Before anything is mentioned about this movie, it needs to be pointed out that it wasn’t really necessary to remake the Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman’s 1973 movie by the same name, but I’ll take that out of the consideration when talking about the remake. Too many people know Hollywood is a cash cow these days so I’ll move on.
For the majority of the movie, we see Paillon (“Papi” as doing hard labor, fighting with other inmates and going against the corrupt guards. He is biding his time so he can get all the pieces in place in order to escape. In the process he gets mistreated, beaten, and brought to a brink of insanity by the guards. Throughout all of it, he somehow carries himself as a man on the mission, making sure not to show that he is capable of fighting back after the guards try to bring him as close to the ground as possible by taking away everything he has.
In prison is where he meets a counterfeiter named Dega. He is a weak man who has know-how to get around and be very helpful. He exhanges this with Papi for protection. Throughout the movie they are seen together with Dega slowing down Papi’s process many times by being clueless and clumsy. They still keep together and constantly go back and forth on what to do if the opportunity arises to escape. The constant problem they encounter is the endless number of guards who are endlessly going around and ganging out on anyone who they hate or who can’t pay them off.
Compared to the original, the remake has quite a few scenes that are important being removed from the final version. These scenes served as key character development in the original. Some prison scenes are also stretched out and feel needlessly long. The island scene in the remake also felt too short as the characters were originally there for an extended period of time. There is also a question on how liable Papillon is. He comes off as confident, strong man with a good heart but the book portrays him as a bit darker. However, movie industry these days can’t show a hero being anything but a guy with a golden heart.
Overall a useless remake considering how loved the original is. The acting is good all around and the dialogue, although cliche, is serviceable. The action is limited but at least we can see it without it being edited to bits. Again, the movie is good and well make but not needed. It felt like it was dragging on for longer than it should have.
Thanks for reading my Papillon (2017) movie review
