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Awix (3310 KP) rated No Escape (2015) in Movies

Mar 26, 2018 (Updated Mar 26, 2018)

No Escape (2015)

2015 | Drama, Thriller

6.9

(13 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Technically competent suspense-thriller can't help coming across as a little bit suspect in the signals it's sending (also, title may not be strictly accurate). Nice American family go to a country which looks like Thailand but definitely isn't, dearie me no, and find themselves imperilled by a native uprising triggered by the Prime Minister's new water works. Can they escape before Pierce Brosnan starts singing again?

As I say, solidly put together, and if nothing else Lake Bell's performance is pretty much immaculate - but you have to wonder if the film's depiction of Asian countries isn't defamatory, or at least scare-mongering. It's not surprising this film was banned in some parts of Asia. There's a lot of bafflegab about the hordes of machete-wielding psychos being locals upset about globalisation, but c'mon, guys, this is clearly a film inspired by fears of radical Islamist terrorism, and as such it seems to be presenting every person in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, etc, as a potential psychopathic killer. For something which is basically second-cousin to a zombie movie, it takes itself terribly seriously; a bit too seriously given how implausible the plot rapidly becomes. Perks up a bit when Brosnan is on screen (not often enough), but is this kind of subject matter really the stuff of such broad entertainment? As a thriller this is okay, but a point knocked off for the dubious subtext.