"Papillon" may have been Steve McQueen's last great role. With his intense and determined personality, he was perfectly cast to play the lead.
"Papillon" tells the story of an 'innocent' Frenchman convicted of murder during the 1930s and sentenced to serve his time in the prisons and work camps of French Guyana, in South America. Once there, Papillon (McQueen) is determined to not only survive the hostile conditions, but escape. He enlists the help of a wealthy counterfeiter and prisoner (Dustin Hoffman).
Although McQueen befriends Hoffman to use his money, he later shows surprisingly loyalty to his friend, risking his life on several occasions for him.
Hoffman gives an even better performance than McQueen. He is particularly good at the film's end, when his character has become so eccentric that he talks to pigs as if they were people.
"Papillon" is not for the faint of heart. There is realistic but graphic violence, and the deprivation and suffering that McQueen endures in prison is shown at length. Still, these scenes are important because they demonstrate how cruel and oppressive a 'civilized' nation can be to its prisoners.
McQueen plays an underdog that attracts sympathy from others, who aid him in his escape attempts. However, those characters that represent power (of Church or State) show much less integrity and betray him. The film has credible and non-stereotypical portrayals of a leper, a homosexual prisoner, and an aboriginal chief.
Dalton Trumbo, made notorious for his blacklisting as one of the Hollywood Ten, was one of the writers. "Papillon" was one of his last scripts, based on the autobiography by Henri Charriere. Trumbo also has a cameo as the prison camp commandant. (89/100)
One man sentenced to life in the French prison system refuses to give up trying to escape even when transferred to the prison colony on Devil's Island...More at Family Video
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