Film Review - No Escape

I have to admit I wasn't really bothered about seeing this one. Owen Wilson doesn't really work for me in anything. The other options out this week weren't any more enticing though so we booked in to see it. Unfortunately then the other half wasn't feeling well so I had to sub-in a spare cinema buddy. 

The story is actually pretty simple, and superbly effective in that simplicity. Family moves to new country, coup happens and foreigners become targets of the rebels, family has to escape. 

As with pretty much every movie I have seen this year, and despite the simplicity of the story, there are some silly niggles. Top on that list was the Bond-villain-esque failures of the 'rebels' to just kill them. There are at least four times where it takes a fairly heavy suspension of disbelief as to how they survive. James Bond himself showing up to intervene at one point as an overwhelming deus ex-machina.

Each of those is easy enough to ignore though as the story charges along at a decent pace and gives you something new to worry about before you can think too much about the script hole. And worry is the key word there. It is a very emotional movie. You do feel for the family, you do get scared when they are in scary situations. 

The most extreme violence is mostly done off-screen, but in such a way that you have no doubt as to what is going on. There are a whole host of good directing tricks here. I doubt I spotted them all but there are some last-second cutaways, some next room sound effects, a few blood-spattered murderers, and so on. In one example there a couple of big explosions, the second of which does much of the killing but by which time we are being treated to the shock-numbed sound effects from the first.

The slightly less extreme, and I am including beating a man to death with a table lamp and multiple shootings, are done in such a way as to be very realistic without being massively graphic. This mix of directing skills actually adds to the emotional strength of the film as you are left in the same position as the family often are, of knowing what is happening but not actually being able to see the details and your own fear and imagination filling in the gaps.

While I am on the writing / directing (both by John Erick Dowdle so I am giving him credit for all the tricks) I am also going to give out some bonus points for the mixture of languages and the way that is also used as a tool to limit the information given to the family, and the viewer. It is a really great trick, right up until he forgets to use it in the second last scene with the Vietnamese army.

All in, much better than expected 7 out of 10.