THE ESCAPIST (MA)  ***1/2

Starring Brian Cox, Dominic Cooper

Directed by Rupert Wyatt

Devotees of HBO’s Oz will be familiar with meaningful nods and grunts that pass for dialogue in prison drama.

Similarly, The Escapist keeps its focus on internal relationships that drive men to prevailing opportunity.

What makes this different is helmer Rupert Wyatt’s forceful choice to chop up timelines. In a chaotic opener, we start near the end with four meaty crims punching their way through a concrete floor.

One line fleshes out startling backgrounds and brutal alliances in the gothic arena of a British prison.

The second charts a frantic escape through claustrophobic sewers and grimy, disused Underground stations.

Wyatt’s film is nothing if not genre defying, despite tapping into the rich vein of prison stereotypes (chilling violence and homoerotica among them).

What nudges this toward the top of its pack is a near perfect cast shaped by sympathetic performance, a pounding edit, and a blistering score. It strives to be – and almost always is – beyond persuasive, before being lobbed into goal with a lights-on reveal of an apparent semantic mix-up that rotates a story which spent most of its time on its ear, onto its head.

The narrative possibly requires a second viewing to check validity but such is the gruelling experience of The Escapist, we’re happy to take Wyatt at his word.