The cover of the packaging boldly states to ‘Prepare Yourself for the Truth’! Umm, I think I might have missed the truth? Perhaps it was just a little white lie instead. At any rate, this final chapter (‘The Final Break’) caps off the successful ‘Prison Break’ TV series on a completely unnecessary, but reasonably, entertaining note.
Admittedly, I never watched the preceding four seasons and while the first season was highly acclaimed, the word on the street is that the series got increasingly long in the tooth, an excellent premise that could only sustain a couple seasons worth of material at best (and, yep, I’m also looking at you, ‘Lost’).
‘The Final Break’ is a somewhat contained story which makes it easier to review having no real context of the series although the knowledge of certain characters certainly would have helped. Of course, having not watched all the previous prison breaks, I’m probably a bit more tolerant of the seemingly goofy plot development that allows the female character to now get herself locked up in a women’s prison.
Jonathan Demme’s ‘Caged Heat’ this isn’t, but I’m always a sucker for women prison flicks and ‘The Final Break’ certainly hits all of the expected (if notably TV-geared) annotations with villainous guards, cat fights and violent, rampant lesbians.
During their wedding no less, the FBI storms in and arrests Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies) who was enjoying a small beach reception with hubby Michael (Wentworth Miller). Arrested on evidence that has her pulling the trigger on Michael’s mother (?!), the pregnant Sara is now paying the price for Michael and his bro, Lincoln (Dominic Purcell), and is put into a women’s prison where a bounty is put on her head by one of Michael’s prison-bound enemies.
Getting a beating right off from the prison guards (none too happy about her collaborations with Michael and Lincoln it seems), Sara isn’t going to last long unless Michael can once again put his particular skill set to good use. This time, however, it seems his particular skill sets will have to rely on blind luck.
Meanwhile, Sara gets an offer to join the ‘family’ of ‘Daddy’, a gang of rough and tumble gals headed up by a bespectacled, hair-cropped Lori Petty - who I dare say offers up the most effective performance of this episode. At first refusing, Sara soon realizes she will need some back up if she wants to stay alive. Needless to say, there will be betrayals and twists and Sara won’t ever know who she can really trust.
The finale, of course, rests on the rather underwhelming escape that leads to an emotional whopper that I’m sure will mean more to the fan than the casual viewer. It all flows along in an entertaining-enough manner that serves as an acceptable time-waster if little else.
The acting and script never really breaks out of its television production value prison cell (you’re welcome) so don’t expect anything special of this separate release but it’s serviceable enough.
The Blu-ray is presented with a 1.78:1 1080p AVC encode that looks fine if hardly amazing. So-so production design and lensing add to mostly lackluster tech specs that range from decent (the opening wedding sequence) to meh (everything else). The transfer is probably decent, I just had some problems with the sparse production design…The DTS track mirrors the video with an adequate mix but it is lacking in spots.
The lone special feature is a couple of ‘Deleted Scenes’ and some start-up trailers. This will ultimately be a no-brainer for fans of the show who want to finally close the book on these characters but I can’t imagine that they will be too pleased as nothing notable seems to happen (at least anything that fans don’t already know).
As a stand-alone story, it’s cheesy and entertaining but nothing that hints at what was supposedly a great first season.
Prison Break: The Final Break [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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