The directing/writing/producing team of brothers John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle specialize in horror film, the best of which was their [REC] remake QUARANTINE, but which sadly includes such forgettables as AS ABOVE, SO BELOW, DEVIL, and a leading candidate for the least effective found-footage film ever made, THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES. Their latest work, NO ESCAPE, might seem like a change of pace, but after you view it, you’ll quickly realize that the only differences between the type of horror the Dowdles dealt in before and this one are the presence of supernatural creatures. In fact, No Escape might be the scariest film they’ve ever made because it’s based squarely in the real world.
That being said, I watching NO ESCAPE in a free-floating state of discomfort because of its set up. A white American family uproots itself from Austin to an unspecified nation in Southeast Asia (the film was shot in Thailand, but it’s established that the country in question borders Vietnam, which would make it Cambodia or Laos), where father/husband Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson) has gotten a job for a Western corporation deepening its roots in the region.
Almost as soon as the family—which includes wife Annie (Lake Bell) and young daughters Beeze (Claire Geare) and Lucy (Sterling Jerins)—gets to the hotel where they’re staying, all hell breaks loose in the form of a violent, decidedly anti-American coup, where any American is shot on site. Jack gathers his terrified family, and they spend the rest of the film attempting to run and hide from these revolutionaries, attempting to stop corporations from stealing and controlling their natural resources.
As much as I believe the Dowdles have attempted not to demonize the residents of this entire anonymous country, there’s pretty much no avoiding it. Nearly every Asian face in this movie goes nameless and is out to murder the Dwyers. If the goal of NO ESCAPE was to make as as scared to go to Southeast Asia as JAWS made us afraid to go in the water, I’m sure that’s what the upshot will be. The film works from the idea that it can sometimes be scary being in a foreign country, where no one around you speaks your language, signs and maps don’t make sense, and the entire population wants to string you up. It happens.
Putting aside the xenophobia for the time being, NO ESCAPE works best as an above-average action film, with its saving grace being Pierce Brosnan’s Hammond, a corporate spy and general mess of a man who manages to lead the Dwyer’s through the winding streets of a city with no name, aiming them as best he can toward a border crossing where they will be safe. He’s the only character in the film who seems about as fed up with the whole situation as I’m sure many of your will be when the film is over.
The sequence in NO ESCAPE that will undoubtedly generate the most attention is actually the culmination of the best scene in the film. After a long stand on the roof their hotel with other guests, the masked bad guys somehow make it up there and kill nearly everyone. The Dwyers get to the edge of the build where they decide to jump to the roof of another building several stories below. As adults, Annie and Jack are barely going to make this jump. But with two kids? Forget it. So they literally fling their children across the gap between buildings. I’m not going to lie: it’s damn thrilling stuff. And as much as some audience members might be shocked by this sequence, the only alternative for the family was to not to it and allow the entire family to get mowed down. You have to give the Dowdles a little credit for trying something new, something that appeals profoundly unsafe.
Wilson and Bell have a certain relatable, easy-going chemistry as a couple who are still in the early stages of dealing with this upheaval in their lives. We don’t get a sense that this is a shaky marriage; still, they have been shaken by Jack losing his job and the family leaving their lives behind for a shady new job halfway around the world. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe NO ESCAPE as a family drama couched in an action movie, but I think those were the aspirations.
Wilson hasn’t gone this hardcore action in about 15 years, since BEHIND ENEMY LINES. But in that film, he played a character with self-defense and weapons training. Another unusual quality of NO ESCAPE is just how sloppy and unprofessional the Dwyers are in evading and defending against attackers, as they would be. They’re tripping over objects in the jungle, they have no skills at avoiding their would-be killers, and the children sometimes simply refuse to cooperate because they’re tired, scared and hungry. And few things made me recoil from a film more than annoying child characters.
If you can avoid being culturally offended by the portrayal of the bloodthirsty, faceless Asian mobs at play here, you can probably find things about NO ESCAPE to appreciate. The action set pieces are staged quite nicely. And Bell, certainly more than Wilson, shows a ferocious protective quality when her children are threatened. It’s a side to her acting talents I don’t believe I’ve seen before, and she absolutely pulls it off.
NO ESCAPE doesn’t attempt to hide its barely cloaked political agenda about the perils of American involvement in any developing nation, thanks in large part to Exposition Jones (aka Brosnan). But that isn’t really the point of this film. The mission is to get the blood moving, and that mission is accomplished. Anything beyond that makes the film a tough sell and nearly impossible to fully recommend.
