Too few people remember that veteran character actor Brian Cox originated the role of Hannibal Lector, in Michael Mann’s still-underrated Manhunter (1986). Cox’s interpretation was far less flashy than Anthony Hopkin’s iconic subsequent performances but was in some ways more terrifying; while Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs came across like Bela Lugosi in a prison uniform, Cox played the murderous doctor as a man who seemed to come from the real world. He just happened to be insane.

Cox’s menacing everyman persona has served him well through countless roles, in films as diverse as Rushmore, Troy, Super Troopers, The Bourne Identity and The Ring. It takes a long time for “that guy” actors to get roles written specifically for them, but with The Escapist, Rupert Wyatt has apparently done just that. So, is this the role Cox was born to play?

He plays Frank Perry, serving a life sentence. He hasn’t received any mail in 14 years, so you best believe when that envelope does arrive, the news won’t be good; his daughter has grown into a life of drug addiction, and after several emergency hospital visits, probably won’t last another year.

Perry hatches an escape plan, which isn’t as elaborate as it is physically demanding, a slightly less shittier tunnelling job than Andy Dufresne's in The Shawshank Redemption. First-time director Wyatt shows a natural gift in the escape scenes and an ability to communicate the spatial and physical dynamics of the situation with ease.

Though crowded by too many characters and overbearing music, the action remains tight and exciting. That is until Wyatt all but completely deflates his own story with a final “twist,” one of those last-act pulls of the rug that no audience member can see coming, if only because it denigrates what they have been watching with their own eyes. If the film had relied more consistently on suspense instead of surprise, it would have worked just excellently as a genre picture. A sudden infusion of psychoanalysis doesn’t serve the story one bit.

But The Escapist is well worth seeing for the performances, with Cox as a man given tremendous weight despite minimal backstory. He is able to slide perfectly into the role, forging something new, though you’ve no doubt seen him many times before. Sign of a true thespian.

The Escapist is available on DVD now from E1 Films.