“No Escape” sounds like the title of a direct-to-DVD (or, these days, direct-to-VOD) movie. But The Weinstein Company thought they could make a little bit of money at the end of an action-packed Summer by releasing it in theaters. But there’s “no escaping” the fact that this thriller belongs in a discount bin at Walmart and not your local multiplex.
Owen Wilson is known for playing the goofball or sidekick in comedies – not a heroic action star. In “No Escape”, he’s inventor and businessman Jack Dwyer, who’s just taken a job with an international corporation that supplies clean water to 3rd world countries. So he’s moving his family – wife Annie (Lake Bell from “Million Dollar Arm”) and two young daughters – to Southeast Asia.
But to say his timing is bad would be a gross understatement: On the first day in their new country, the Prime Minister is assassinated and a revolution begins. The coup escalates quickly, and the violence travels directly to the Dwyers’ hotel. So Jack is forced to act fast – and take some wild chances – in order to survive this horrific nightmare and get his family to safety.
Pierce Brosnan has a 007-style supporting role and he does add some lighter touches to the very serious tone. This film doesn’t just depict one of the worst possible circumstances parents could ever face – but places you right in the middle of it, early on, making you feel like you’re in just as much danger as the Dwyers. But there is such as thing as “too much of a bad thing”…and once Jack is forced to throw his daughters from one rooftop to another (shown in ridiculous slow-motion), “No Escape” begins its descent into the land of unbelievability.
It’s always tough to buy-into movies, especially fictional ones – in which a family or small group of people are at the center of their own apocalypse and, somehow, they’re the only ones to stay alive. There are literally hundreds of people, just like the Dwyers, graphically slaughtered in this film, and yet this husband and wife, dragging two little kids along, are able to survive deadly situations, time and time again. Wilson and Bell do their best, but it’s all pretty far-fetched.
And I always find it distasteful, manipulative and desperate when a screenplay (this one is written by the film’s director John Erick Dowdle and his brother Drew) has to rely on young children being put in extremely dangerous situations in order to draw emotion out of an audience.
“No Escape” also has some rough editing and shaky story elements in certain spots. And while it does do a good job of convincing you to put-off that planned vacation to Southeast Asia, it never feels gripping or genuinely suspenseful.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “No Escape” gets a C-.
Running Time: 103 min.