No Escape is a combination of Behind Enemy Lines meets Argo meets World War Z. Unfortunately, it is not nearly as good as any of these movies. In fact, it wasn’t good at all. It certainly was not the worst movie I had seen in 2015, but thus far, it has been the most disappointing. The previews for this movie make it looks great. If you’ve seen any movie this summer, you’ve undoubtedly seen the extended clip of Owen Wilson, in a last-ditch effort to save his family, hurling his young daughter from the roof of one building to another. It makes the movie look like the most intense movie of the year. Unfortunately, this scene is easily the best of the film, and the movie ultimately falls apart after that. Unfortunately, there is no escape from me giving this movie a poor review. It’s so bad that it’s not even the best movie named No Escape. The 1994 Ray Liotta effort was much better and more deserving of your time.
Wilson (The Internship, Hall Pass) has never been worse in terms of acting. I am not saying that the guy can only do comedies (which he is excellent at). He has proven that he can handle action (Behind Enemy Lines) and Romance (Midnight in Paris). I believe that he has the talent to do a heavy drama or even a movie where he plays a dark character. But he’s going to need the right script and the right director. This was not it. I honestly felt that this could be sort of a coming-out party for him in a genre that isn’t a comedy, but this movie is going to end up being a throwaway movie when you look at his whole filmography. I think Wilson should continue to stick with what works for him for the time being. He can make me laugh in ones that only a few others can. Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Steve Carell, Kristin Wiig, and Jason Sudeikis are the ones that come to mind quickly as others who have that ability.
It did not help Wilson’s cause that his costars weren’t particularly strong either. Lake Bell (Million Dollar Arm, Black Rock) was serviceable as Annie, wife of Jack (Wilson). Her performance was much better than Wilson’s, though I am not going to blame Wilson. He received some terrible lines. The more movie reviews I do, the more I view these features from a critic’s standpoint than I am just trying to enjoy a film. It becomes a little more difficult to suspend my belief when the circumstances are so preposterous yet are intended to be believable. I can be oaky with a believable movie or one where you have to check yourself at the door. But when the expectation is to “believe this preposterous plot,” that’s where conflict arises. And while I am discussing the acting, I am still scratching my head to the point of having an accomplished actor like Pierce Brosnan (The Tailor of Panama, The Thomas Crown Affair) in this film. Both his presence as an actor and his involvement as a character were unnecessary. There was no continuity in Hammond, and he absolutely could have been played by a non-recognizable actor. In fact, it would have been better this way. The best acting performance was delivered by early elementary school-aged daughters Lucy (Sterling Jerins) and Beeze (Claire Geare).
The plot of this film is simple enough. An idealistic Jack moves his family to an unnamed Asian country (Cambodia maybe) to start a new job. America had provided several near-miss business opportunities leaving the job in this unknown country as his most viable option. There was an apparent lack of research on Jack’s end about his new job. He is some water engineer and is led to believe that he will be helping this third-world country with some clean water issue and that his work on the project will make the lives better for all those who live there. Unfortunately for Jack, his family, and all the other foreigners in this nation’s capital, it is right about that time that a mass coup takes place in the city’s streets. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people are killed. The reason for this is understandable enough yet not so at all at the same time. There are massive out-of-country corporations and loans these third-world countries these enormous debts that these country’s governments will never be able to pay back. In essence, these countries become indebted to these corporations forever. In this specific instance, it is believed that as a result of Jack’s company’s work, the citizens of this country will have to pay a massive tax on the debt. So I get how angry the locals might be. I could even see them resorting to violence. I could even buy the uprising. However, the two parts of this that I could not buy into was their ability to organize so quickly without anyone becoming aware of any potential coup forming and also how Jack could be so oblivious as not even to do a tiny bit of research to learn about the culture, the politics, the social issues, etc. of where he would be moving his young family.
In any case, the plot gives the locals a reason to attack anyone who isn’t Asian. But of particular note is Jack because he and two of his colleagues have their pictures featured on a couple of welcome signs visible throughout the city. So suddenly, the white-collared nice guy becomes enemy number one. And a guy who we presume to have never been involved in hand-to-hand combat is suddenly Chuck Norris. Now I understand desperate times call for desperation, but how many battles can you continue to win before one finally takes you down. Director John Erick Dowdle (The Devil, Quarantine), who has had some success directing horror flicks, should continue to stick with the genre that has brought him his success for at least a bit longer. He showed his inexperience when dealing with a bigger-budget movie with Hollywood A-Listers. This might be the least suspenseful suspense movie I’ve ever seen. Again, I didn’t hate it. It just failed to meet my expectations in just about every single way.
This movie is very, very predictable and chalked about with tons of things that you’ve seen hundreds of times before. Now, that in itself doesn’t mean a movie can’t be enjoyable. For the most part, this movie is non-stop action. But from the predictable plot to the forced dialogue to the knowing exactly what’s going to happen before it happens, predictability to the woeful acting, you are left with a movie that has a whole bunch of minuses and not nearly enough pluses. What’s ironic is I really, really enjoyed the first 45 minutes. Everything that led up to the infamous throwing of the daughter from one building roof to the next was great. But when Owen Wilson turned into John James Rambo, I could not take the film seriously any longer. Don’t even get me started on Brosnan.
Plot 6.5/10 (more believable than a movie such as, say, Red Dawn, but not by much)
Character Development 6./10
Character Chemistry 6/10
Acting 4/10
Screenplay 5/10
Directing 5/10
Cinematography 7/10
Sound 8/10 (cheesy at times, but at other times the music works…if you pay attention closely, you’ll notice music runs in the background for a good portion of this film)
Hook and Reel 7/10 (first half 10/10 second half 4/10…averages to a 7/10)
Universal Relevance 6/10
60.5%
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