You can do a lot of things in 172 minutes. You can go shopping. You can take your dog to the park. You can take yourself to the park alone and be that loner weirdo at the park. You can eat a meal at a restaurant with poor service because three hours is a really long time to spend at a restaurant if you're not blacking out on Sambuca. You can take a train from New York to Philadelphia and probably have a terrible time, because who just gets on a train and takes it three states away for no reason? And, of course, you can watch The Great Escape.
You're probably sitting there with your cool phone and hipster skinny jeans saying, "Wait...huh, what? What's this movie called? The Great What? Who's in it, Ryan Reynolds? Jaime Foxx? Harold and Kumar?"
Uh, that's not even funny, bro. It's not even funny to pretend that you've never heard of The Great Escape. Seriously, I'm going to go puke - are you happy now?
In all honesty, watching The Great Escape is thee best way for you to spend 172 minutes. Well, I guess that might not be the case if those 172 minutes are your last 172 minutes alive. If that's the case, then you should probably go see your family and not sit around watching a movie. Wow, guess your parents never taught you about a little tiny thing called PRIORITIES. Okay, I guess there are other exceptions, too. Like if you spend those 172 minutes saving a family from their overturned car that's stuck in a river and, oh my God, THE RIVER WATER IS RISING! If you save a whole family from drowning and it takes around 172 minutes, then sure, you win this argument. But if there is no immanent death, no heroic achievements on the horizon, then I suggest you go watch this movie. Now. Right now.
If you're not already convinced to see The Great Escape by my wildly uninformed ranting (hard to believe, really), here's one quick thing that's awesome about this movie: Steve McQueen is in it. Yeah, so what, Steve McQueen died over thirty years ago. Blah blah blah. Steve McQueen is still fucking awesome. He did most of his own stunts. He liked to drive really fast cars and motorcycles and he got married like sixty times to a bevvy of beautiful ladies. And then when he had done so much cool shit he ran out of cool shit to do, he grew a crazy beard and died way out in the desert or something. Bottom line, you will never do anything even half-as-cool in your life. Look at you. You're a mess. Is that...is that soup on your shirt? Lentil? Eww gross. Go clean yourself up, for fuck's sake.
Steve McQueen never spilled soup on himself. He carried himself like a bad-as-shit action star. He's nothing like the supposed "action stars" of today. He didn't spend his weekends trying to get all his neighbors to convert to Scientology. He didn't spend his weekends at the spa. Spa? What? Are you crazy? Fuck that. He spent his weekends racing motorcycles and probably fighting bikers in bars in Venice Beach. Yeah, it helps that The Great Escape has an amazingly engaging plot that involves trickery and deceit and the Allies outsmarting those nitwit Germans, and the movie also has a sick cast of old-timers, and the the story is based on a actual events involving a bunch of WWII POW's who planned some cockamamie escape from a German prison camp. But all of these points take a backseat to Mr. Cool, Steve McQueen, kicking ass and showing those Krauts just why America is the shit and home of the brave and McDonald's. USA USA USA!
Go watch this movie. Not only is it prestigiously ranked on my 'Paradigms' list, but it's also worth much more than a meager 172 minute of your life.
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