No Escape

 NO ESCAPE

Director : John Erick Dowdle

Year : 2015

Genre : Thriller

Rating : **1/2

 

We are now at that curious limbo in the movie calendar between the Summer blockbuster season and the award contenders season. Normally during this time of year, we get the standard multiplex fare such as 'Hitman : Agent 47' and 'American Ultra' to keep the box office ticking over nicely but then one or two more prestigious films are quietly slipped in to begin the gradual run down to the Oscars come March next year. Last year, September saw the releases of 'The Guest', 'The Boxtrolls', 'Pride' and 'A Most Wanted Man' - all big critical smashes and indeed BAFTA or Academy Award nominees. This September, we see the openings of 'Everest', 'Irrational Man' and 'Legend', once again films I believe will score big when it comes to award nominations at the end of 2015. This week sees the release of 'No Escape', the latest film from Bold Pictures whose most recent productions 'Whiplash' and 'Nightcrawler' were both - you guessed it - major award contenders. So maybe the 2015 awards season can finally begin with 'No Escape'? Well, not quite.

Directed by John Erick Dowdle, 'No Escape' follows the lives of a loving family (headed by Owen Wilson and Lake Bell) whose holiday/business trip in Asia is abruptly cut short when a bloody revolution begins and foreigners are hunted down for execution by the murderous rebels. What ensues is a heart-pounding battle of wits and courage as Wilson and his family try to evade the wrath of the deadly locals and escape out of the country to seek asylum. 

This set-up may sound exciting and indeed 'No Escape' certainly pulls no punches when it comes to threat and barnstorming thrills. For 90% of the film, I was on the edge of my seat and it is all credit to director Dowdle who manages to embue 'No Escape' with an incredibly claustrophobic air of danger and hopelessness. The cast too are very good with Lake Bell and Owen Wilson giving career-best performances as parents who must do the unthinkable to protect themselves and their two young daughters while Pierce Brosnan provides some welcome comic relief as an exposition-spouting ex-patriate. However, where 'No Escape' falls completely flat on it's face is in the xenophobic, almost caricaturist  portrayal of the many Asian characters - every one either a machete-wielding, bloodthirsty psychopath or simply collateral damage. Not since watching Cimino's 'The Deer Hunter' for the first time 6 years ago was I so struck by an acrid air of racism and prejudice in a film and within half an hour of the beginning of 'No Escape', I felt incredibly uncomfortable in my seat; and not due to the relentless action on screen. It is a shame that a film as potentially thrilling and as potentially great as 'No Escape' would be tripped up by something as offensive as this but it is impossible to even try to overlook this most egregious of missteps. I guess the awards season will have to wait for at least another week.....