Papillon
2017movie
Michael Noer’s remake is more generic and romantic, with a duller sense of character and setting. It’s a reasonably diverting genre exercise, but Schaffner’s original humbles it by every criterion of excellence. Also based on the novel by Henri Charrière, Noer’s Papillon takes shortcuts in establishing its settings and characterizations for the sake of sentimentalizing the friendship between two prisoners in the 1930s as they attempt to escape from a brutal penal colony in French Guiana.
While being transported to the hellhole to which he has been condemned, Papillon meets a counterfeiter named Dega (Malek), a nervous fellow still optimistic enough to believe that his wife’s appeals will lead to his release. The wealthiest prisoners in this system bring money into the colony in chambers that are held in their rectums, and Papillon correctly presumes Dega has one of those. Papillon needs Dega’s money to plan an escape—Dega needs Papillon’s protection from everyone else around them. It’s a perfect match of brawn and brain.
