» Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek shine in “Papillon.”
Charlie Hunnam could turn out to be the honey badger of Hollywood actors. Let others chase down big franchises — his foray into this territory with “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” deservedly was a boxoffice disaster — and he’ll continue to make movies about forgotten men in history that in turn stand a good chance of being forgotten by the public at large. He doesn’t seem to care.
He did it in 2016 with the commercially unloved “The Lost City of Z,” the story of British explorer Percival Fawcett who vanished in the Amazon jungle and one of that year’s best films. He’s at it again with the engrossing “Papillon” (opening Friday), a remake of the 1973 Steve McQueen-Dustin Hoffman film based on the life of Henri “Papillon” Charrière, who achieved what many thought was impossible by escaping notorious Devil’s Island prison in 1941.
This is a movie with no natural constituency. Unlike in the ’70s, adventure films that aren’t part of a franchise and are aimed at adults are as rare as black-andwhite projection — and equally likely to enjoy widespread success. But that shouldn’t dampen the appreciation for “Papillon,” a movie built on the back of a sturdy, men-against-the-odds story and vivid performances.
Directed by Denmark’s Michael Noer, who spent much of his career making documentaries, in an unfussy, straightforward fashion, “Papillion” sports old-fashioned sensibilities that now seem novel and fresh.
Hunnam is Papillon, a renowned safe-cracker and man about town in ’30s-era Paris who is wrongly accused of murder. His rough justice ends with a life sentence in the hell on Earth that is the prison located in France’s South American territory of French Guiana. Along the way, he allies with bookish Louis Dega (Rami Malek), a convicted forger with access to lots of (real) cash, which he is going to need to buy protection from his thuggish fellow inmates.
Papillon becomes his muscle and Dega becomes Papillon’s banker of sorts while both a friendship and a plan to escape are hatched out of their shared suffering and torture.
Hunnam throws himself into the role with grim determination — to prep for the part he reportedly dropped nearly 40 pounds and stayed alone in a cell for eight days without food or drink. It shows in his performance. Near the end, he really looks undernourished, shell-shocked and stupefied.
Malek (who doesn’t have a spare 40 pounds to lose) makes for a pitch-perfect nervous schemer, not totally dissimilar from his “Mr. Robot” incarnation, who comes to the realization that money can’t buy him everything.
The supporting cast — including Eve Hewson (“The Knick”), Michael Socha (“Once Upon a Time”) and Roland Moller (“Atomic Blonde”) — is strong but this is a movie that rests squarely on the shoulders of the two leads.
The result is a film with much of the same appeal as “The Lost City of Z.” Let’s hope it doesn’t have the same fate.