No Escape is a highly disturbing, pulse-pounding action thriller that finds Owen Wilson transforming into an unlikely everyday superhero dad able to scale tall buildings almost in a single bound to keep his wife and two young daughters safe from a vicious mob. Actually, make that not just a vicious mob but an entire country out to kill all Americans because they’re involved with a company that’s done the country wrong.
A film completely devoid of any gray areas, No Escape is an us against them action movie with the ‘us’ made up of four adults and two children (played quite convincingly by Claire Geare and Sterling Jerins), and the ‘them’ everyone else in the film.
In addition to Jack Dwyer (Wilson) protecting the kids, Lake Bell becomes a tigress in full fight mode playing Annie Dwyer, a woman ill-equipped to handle a move to a foreign country (think Cambodia, but it’s never named). For Pete’s sake, this is a woman who brought along her own rice cooker; that’s how completely clueless she is about approaching life in a country bordering Vietnam (which is actually named, so we know they’re near it). Pitching in to save the day is Pierce Brosnan as a hard-drinking, party-hardying womanizer who makes friends with the family pretty much the minute they step off the plane. If you assume that somehow he’ll be involved in helping them later in the film, you’d be correct. That’s not a spoiler because it’s obvious. Blatantly obvious.
And the fourth adult who’s allowed to display a personality in No Escape is a cab driver (played by Sahajak Boonthanakit) who is bizarrely obsessed with pre-cosmetic makeover Kenny Rogers.
Really, there’s nothing to the story although the Dowdle Brothers attempted to inject political commentary into the plot. I say “attempted to” in that if you were to actually buy into the political commentary they’re attempting to sell, you’d flee from No Escape 15 minutes into the movie because of how broadly it paints the good guys, the bad guys, and the faceless mob who are mowed down by bullets without a pause to reflect the implications of their horrific slaughter.
Normally, I’d suggest you pay attention to the exposition and seek to empathize with someone, anyone, in order to get invested in the story. In this case, you don’t need to bother with any of the reasoning behind the actions. You’ll root for the family because they’re strangers in a foreign land just trying to get home after being thrust into a life-or-death battle that wasn’t their doing. You’ll root for Pierce Brosnan and Sahajak Boonthanakit because they’re the film’s comic relief, a team that steps up when the family is threatened.
In no way is No Escape light entertainment. This is an extremely dark film, more so than you could possibly expect from viewing the trailers. When you don’t believe the situation could get any worse for the family, it takes a nauseatingly brutal turn in a direction you never anticipated it could go. The family’s terror is contagious, oozing off the screen and finding its way into your pores even in the relative safety of a darkened theater.
But, again, it’s necessary to take this film at face value. View it as an action-packed thriller that’s not reflective of any actual political views, race, or moral issues and only as the story of a family attempting to find their way out against impossible odds. The Dowdle Brothers have created a suspenseful, heart-wrenching, adrenaline-charged thriller featuring terrific performances from all of the lead actors, young and old.
GRADE: B-
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence including a sexual assault, and for language
Running Time: 103 minutes
Release Date: August 26, 2015
