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YMMV / Escape from Alcatraz

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  • Harsher in Hindsight: An airing of the movie on a Starz channel occurred the exact same night that two convicted murderers escaped from a maximum-security prison in upstate New York. What's more, the men used several tactics seen in this movie, such as the Sleeping Dummy.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Frank Morris is a career criminal and prison escapee who is sent to Alcatraz Island to ensure his permanent incarceration. While there, the stoic Morris hatches an escape plan with three other inmates that takes months of preparation, outwitting the guards repeatedly to get the necessary tools for the task and keeping their work a secret. Morris and two of his conspirators are the only men to escape Alcatraz and never be caught, only leaving behind a secret message for the Warden as a last taunt to his previous boast that no one will ever escape Alcatraz.
  • Moment of Awesome: The escape.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Dear God, this is not how a prison warden should behave! Yet sadly, the Warden crosses it in his zeal to control the prisoners, to the point where Umbridge may have learned a thing or two from him in running Hogwarts.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Danny Glover makes his film debut as the inmate that Frank first encounters when delivering books.

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