No Escape-An Honest Review

The 2015 action thriller was written and directed by John Erick Dowdle, with additional writing from Drew Dowdle. It’s the story of Jack Dwyer ( Owen Wilson ) and his family who recently moved to South East Asia, and attacked by anti-foreigner terrorists.

Warning, Spilers Ahead:

PLOT:

The film opens up with the country’s Prime Minister’s assasination. After which we meet the family, Jack’s wife, Annie ( Lake Bell ) and two daughters, Lucy ( Sterling Jerins ) and Briegel ( Claire Geare ). All of which, except Jack hating the idea of leaving home for-? An unidentified country and an unidentified city.

On the plane they meet Hammond ( Pierce Brosnan ), who quickly befriends the family. The next day, while out in the unidentified city, Jack is attacked by a large group of anti-foreigners. He escapes to the hotel with his family. Meanwhile, the terrorists kill everyone they see in the hotel.

Jack and his family escape to the roof. What happened to James Bond? The movie forgets his existence. A friendly looking helicopter nears the buidling, relieving everyone until the guests get gunned down. The family being forced to hardcore parcour their way across the city.

Making it to a river area, they do their best to hide in plain sight. All the while, the terrorists are still trying to hunt them down.

Reuniting with Brosnan, who admits to being responsible for the events going on. He sacrufices himself, saving the family who escape to Vietnam.

Where does the film take place?:

As mentioned earlier, the film never explicitly mentions where exactly it takes place. At the film’s start, a map on the pland is shown, with it’s destination in South East Asia. More specifically, Indochina. It appears to be landing somewhere in either Cambodia, or Thailand, most likely Bangkok, though it’s not entirely clear.

Later on, the family escapes to Vietnam. Vietnam borders three countries, China is out since it’s not an Indochinese country. Leaving just Laos and Cambodia, assuming they didn’t cross an entire country to get there.

But, giving how Southernness of the map, it leads me to the conclusion that the film takes place in Cambodia.

CONCLUSION:

The film suffers from a lack of characterisation. Each feeling like a person I’ve seen before a thousand times. Sure, Wilson proved he can act in a serious film, even though he basically just played his typical witty, Blonde persona. The only person with a bit of uniqality to him is Pierce Brosnan’s character, and even then, there’s not special about it.

The film however, does benefit from well-paced action scenes. I’d go as far to say that they were better than most, even compared to one’s with much higher budgets.

Overall, for what it was, I’d give No Escape a 6/10

-The Screenwriter

Rip Larry King

All photos from Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page