Review of No Escape (2015) by Clarisesamuels — 24 Oct 2016

Despite some of the appallingly bad reviews of this film, I had to download it from Netflix if only because Owen Wilson and Pierce Brosnan are two of my all-time favorite actors. Fortunately, with a Netflix film, you can watch it on your desktop computer without forcing your unsuspecting spouse to share your fandom preferences, and you can fast-forward the movie over the parts lacking in substance, which in this case was about half the film.

A lovely young WASPy couple with the bland name of Dwyer (Lake Bell and Owen Wilson) are on their way to an unidentified Southeast Asian country that is possibly Thailand, where the dad has accepted a good job as a waterworks engineer. The movie opens stylishly with high production values as we see the kindly prime minister of this venerable land get assassinated in spite of the watchful eye of his devoted bodyguard. When the bodyguard realizes that his leader has been killed, he commits harakiri.

From there, we switch suddenly to a happy family of four on an airplane, and the focus is now on the Dwyers. The Dwyers arrive the day of the Revolution, and after enjoying only one peaceful morning in their city hotel, they suddenly realize that they are trapped in the pits of hell. The rebels want to kill all the Westerners in town, which would not seem to be in line with their political agenda, since they presumably want to stage a government coup (the film was originally entitled “The Coup”) and not carry out some kind of fanatical, terrorist mission against all evil Westerners.

The cinematic tension focuses on the Dwyers’ two little girls since the parents are most concerned about their safety and well-being. For example, when Jack Dwyer comes home from having witnessed a violent street scene and wants his family to leave immediately, the older daughter is missing because she decided to go swimming in the hotel pool by herself even though she’s not old enough to go anywhere by herself. It is necessary for the cinematic suspense, but highly unlikely that the daughter would have slipped past her overprotective mom, who never even noticed she had left the room.

Owen Wilson is always adorable in comedic scenarios. Here his acting range is being stretched to the limits, but he just about gets to where he needs to be as a desperate dad trying to save his family. Lake Bell, another good comedy actor, is also attempting to reach the outer periphery of her range and also with limited success. It doesn’t help that she has a weak script with lines like, “Oh, man, I’m scared,” as she is about to make a death-defying leap from one rooftop to another. Brosnan’s role as Hammond, a British government agent, is gritty and noticeably downplays his still handsome profile. He explains to Jack Dwyer that his operatives encouraged the now fallen government to allow Western control of the country’s industry, and thus the Brits were indirectly responsible for the upheaval. This role might have given Brosnan some bite, but he is a secondary character that is never fully developed.

The title “No Escape” has echoes of Sartre’s “No Exit.” But Sartre envisioned hell being a place where one is stuck for eternity with people one does not like, as in the Sartrean proclamation “hell is other people.” In this film hell is Southeast Asia when the masses are out of control, and it’s no longer about eating authentic Thai food and taking quaint photographs of flute players and fishing boats.