“Jailbreak” (2017) is a classic Cambodian action film featuring the ancient Cambodian martial art of bokator. A team of cops escort Playboy (Savin Phillip), a recently convicted crime lord, to Prei Klaa Prison. The real boss is Madame Butterfly (Céline Tran), who puts a bounty on his head and values loyalty above all else and has an all women crew except for one guy. The feared Bolo (Sisowath Siriwudd, whose day job is being a Cambodian Prince), an inmate with ties to Madame Butterfly, orchestrates a jail break to accomplish the job, which means that the cops must fight for their lives to protect Playboy. Will they survive?
The movie was shot in Cambodia and had Cambodian talent, but the filmmakers are Europeans who probably moved to get a chance to make movies because the competition was stiffer at home. You only get one life so good for them, but is it good for movie lovers? Director Jimmy Henderson is an Italian ex pat who moved to Cambodia in 2011. “Jailbreak” was his third film, and he is still making them. Martial arts movies depend on the camera work as much as the fighters, and I prefer the Fred Astaire style of capturing the action: show the entire body, treat it like a dance and no cuts to appreciate the artistry. Henderson does not make the mistakes that a lot of action directors make nowadays, but he is far from perfect. He hates to keep his camera still, but most of the time, the camera movement follows the flow of the fight. He wants to play too. His work predates Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence” (2025), but occasionally he will treat the camera like one of the inmates so he can join in the fun. A lot of his work would be better if he followed his instincts during hallway fights, but in large rooms, he is like a kid on a diet at a buffet. He wants to choose everything so there is some clever passing from one fight to the other without cutting, which is balletic in moderation, but gets tiresome if no pauses are offered. The fights get monotonous because there is no sense of pacing or gradually making the obstacles more difficult to keep the audience invested.
Henderson cowrote the film with former British solicitor, aka attorney, turned screenwriter Michael Hodgson. Hodgson was still practicing as an attorney when he went to Cambodia in 2007. “Jailbreak” is his second collaboration with Henderson and his fourth film. In 2015, he received the honor of Commander of the Royal Order of Sahametrei, which goes to show that location is key because the story is not great. The main characters barely have any distinguishing characteristics.
Inspector Jean-Paul Ly (Jean-Paul Ly) comes from France to handle this assignment for reasons unknown. Tharoth (Tharoth Sam) is the one woman on team police, and she gets some crap story lines, including a sexual assault predicament that fortunately never repeats even after her character gets knocked out. Sam is known for being a MMA champion so it is disappointing that Henderson decided to make her the first member of the team to go down. Dara (Dara Our) is a proud Cambodian man who does not care for the French dude, but by the end of “Jailbreak,” he is pretty shaken up. Sucheat (Dara Phang) has the most undercover experience, the best hair in the cast and is probably the most normal human being in the bunch. The guards have varying levels of screentime, but do not get individuated at all so if you know one’s name, congratulations, and here is your keen perception award.
The inmates are not much better except they like to fight more than escape. Bolo would have been interesting as the shot caller, but his power gets diluted with underdeveloped rivals who appear in the middle of “Jailbreak” to challenge his dominance, which is too late to get invested. Again, if you caught his name, come collect a cookie. Bolo is the biggest guy in there and can fight five men at once without a Billy club so the denouement against the inspector strains suspension of disbelief.
Though more like the women in Robert Palmer videos than fearsome fighters, Madame Butterfly and her crew were the most interesting part of “Jailbreak.” French actor Tran was apparently an adult actor turned mainstream, and good for her! Tran has gone on to be a stunt double for the iconic legend Michelle Yeoh. It is a shame that no one figured out that the film should have been a siege movie with her and her women army invading the prison to get to Playboy with everyone else as supporting actors. It is unsurprising that Tran knows how to capture attention, but she is the one actor with a magnetic screen presence. She treats Madame Butterfly like a woman who just wants to enjoy her spy day but must do everything herself to keep the business running. The other women are lovely with impressive ponytails and model physiques but are otherwise forgettable. Tran has an autobiography, “Ne dis pas que tu aimes ca,” which translates to “Don’t say you like it.” Anyone know if it was translated into English? She is in one unintelligible scene where she has dinner with an annoying guy who is the best at what he does. What is he good at? No idea.
If “Jailbreak” committed a cardinal sin, it was the structure of the jail. If you pay attention to the way that the police escort Playboy into the jail then where everyone is after Bolo releases the inmates, so many scenes seemed as if the filmmakers hoped that the audience would not notice that it does not make sense. When Inspector goes to the bathroom, a guard and his team can see the entrance, but somehow a group of inmates creep in and jump him, but everyone sees them when they exit. There are a lot of scenes that have this problem such as when Playboy releases the prisoners from the maximum-security wing. Did he not pass through that area to get to his cell? How did he get to the other side?
There are two maximum security inmates: a cannibal (Eh Phuthong) and a tall Black French guy (Laurent Plancel), who allegedly is named Suicide, but his name is never mentioned. There are more cells so it feels as if there should have been more big bads, but nope. The most unexpected part of “Jailbreak” for the average American unfamiliar with Cambodia is the fact that some of the characters speak three languages: Central Khmer, English and French (colonialism) so if you do not like subtitles, keep walking.
While it must have been exciting to witness the first Khmer action film, “Jailbreak” is a rough first draft that could have used a better story and a director who did not want his camera to be a part of the action. The cast does their job, but deserved a better way to showcase their talents. Let’s hope that indigenous Cambodians get as much opportunities behind the camera as they did in the spotlight so they can enjoy success in their homeland.
