No Escape

Released:  August 26^th, 2015

Rated:  R

Distributor:  The Weinstein Company

Starring:  Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, Sterling Jerins, Claire Geare, Pierce Brosnan

Directed by:  John Erick Dowdle

Written by:  John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle

Personal Bias Alert:  likes thrillers, dislikes cheap tricks to evoke sympathy

7.8 of 10

            The harrowing thriller No Escape is bound to be divisive.  It’s a technically astounding, borderline xenophobic film, your enjoyment of which will depend entirely on how much you can stomach sustained fear and inadvertent racism.  The film would be easier to condemn if you could detect a whiff of actual social politics, but the unfortunate setting of an unnamed Asian country falling into a civil war seems to be little more than a simplistic surrounding for a narrowly focused action thriller.

            The film is only concerned with the survival of one American family, the Dwyers, led by Owen Wilson’s Jack and Lake Bell’s Annie.  The couple have two young daughters who’re old enough to run but young enough to make untimely demands like needing a bathroom.  Evoking sympathy for this group is almost as easy as a paint by the numbers kit, and while No Escape does tread into emotionally manipulative territory, Wilson and Bell always manage to yank it back to something resembling reality.  This film probably doesn’t deserve their talents, but it allows them to show off skills the two traditionally comedic actors haven’t flexed in some time.  They get down and dirty with the action, pulling off stunts and pitching the unending peril with great finesse, but it’s the quiet moments between the two, the exchanged glances and pantomimed plans, that really sell their concerns and desires.  Their world has been quickly whittled down to death or survival, and all they want is to get their family out intact.  The lengths they are forced to go to have a great effect on their relationship, and watching these subtle changes play out between two great actors elevates No Escape far above what was likely on the page.

            The script, written by brothers Drew and John Eric Dowdle, is an admittedly well-paced piece, if a bit too stuck in genre conventions.  The two previously made last year’s horror misfire As Above, So Below, a piece that took a great setting and fumbled the execution.  Their genre contributions fare much better here, coming up with a solid if uninspired cavalcade of set pieces for the Dwyers to survive.  The script is still clearly what holds the film back, though.  There’s too many half-hearted attempts at humor and one incredibly ridiculous action movie moment, but it’s that darn setting that’ll really have you twitching with discomfort.  The decision to put their family survival story in a foreign land and have them targeted simply for being American had to have been made early on, and while the brothers did write in a vague explanation for why the natives hate the Americans, it never feels like more than a half-baked write-off.  Now, if they had completely ignored this point or made every single native a violent revolutionary, then the film would’ve quickly turned into an undefendable piece.  As is, it feels like an unfortunate decision by two guys who didn’t understand the blowback such dismissive treatment would evoke.

            Luckily, this unfortunate decision is drowned out by the sustained action, which throws you from one horrifying situation to another.  You quickly form an emotional bond with the Dwyers, and watching them go through the wringer is an absorbing, tiring experience.  John Eric Dowdle finally shows a bit of pizazz in his direction of the various action scenes, alternatively presenting them with gritty realism and an immaculately smooth style.  Everything in these scenes from the choreography to the sound design is spot-on, with extra props going to editor Elliot Greenberg for putting it all in perfect little places. 

            No Escape does so much right, and yet one uncomfortably poor decision during development nearly derails the whole thing.  Whether the film has crossed that ever-shifting socio-political line is for you to decide, but at least watching it will challenge you to draw a line in the sand.  You might even enjoy the ride while you’re at it.

Other Notes:

Ø  Pierce Brosnan is sort of wasted.

Ø  The camerawork is rather shaky, but it was never too much for me.  Understand that I am also seemingly immune to motion sickness.

Ø  This film understands that it’s much more disturbing to watch a mother shielding her child’s eyes than to see all the mayhem around them.

As Above, So Below

Released:  August 29^th, 2014

Rated:  R

Studio:  Universal Pictures

Starring:  Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, François Civil, Marion Lambert, Ali Marhyar

Directed by:  John Erick Dowdle

Written by:  Drew Dowdle, John Erick Dowdle

Personal Bias Alert:  claustrophobic, wasn’t feeling well during the screening

2.3 of 10

Full Disclosure:  I did step out for a minute in the middle of this film because of nausea.  It was due to illness and not anything onscreen, and I don’t feel it affected my viewing at all.

            This movie starts out on the wrong foot, stays on the wrong foot, and ends on the wrong foot.  It opens with a scene of our main character, Scarlett (Perdita Weeks), on a bus to Iran.  She explains into her camera that she is entering the country knowing that she will be killed if she’s caught, but that it’s her last chance to find some key thing before they blow it up.  Now, what the audience is supposed to learn from this little scene is that our heroine is determined, stubborn, and moderately reckless.  What we actually learn is that she’s dumb enough to say out loud that she is committing an act that she can be killed for on a bus full of people in a normal speaking voice.

            That’s a frustrating start that the film never recovers from.  It plods along for another twenty minutes trying to establish that Scarlett and her friend George (Ben Feldman) are smart (they speak multiple languages and like old things!), but we know better.  Once things start going down, I knew they would make dumb decision after dumb decision because Scarlett had already proven that that’s what she does.  You can have all the degrees and speak all the languages you want, but if you follow the supposedly dead guy into the tunnel that no one returns from, not a soul on Earth is going to think you’re smart.

            Despite the rough setup, I did actually take a liking to the two leads.  Weeks is a Brit, and if there’s one thing that makes exposition and setup go down smooth it’s an attractive person with a British accent spouting it.  Feldman’s a good looking guy, too, but my crass observations about their appearance is selling them short.  These two actually manage to show off some decent acting despite their poorly drawn characters, and their likability stems more from their talent than their looks.  I’d actually like to see the two paired up again in the future, albeit in a better film.

            While poorly paced, I did appreciate that the film took the time to establish a clear motivation for the two’s journey into the catacombs of Paris:  to find the philosopher’s stone.  They even build in some nice puzzle mysteries to slow down and explain to uninformed audience members such as myself (a.k.a. those who didn’t read Harry Potter) what the hell the philosopher’s stone is and what some of the mystical symbols they encounter are.  Early on, it seems like the filmmakers are actually trying to establish a mythology, which would make the early slow parts worth it if they actually stuck with it to a grand ending.  Instead, some lazy storytelling techniques muddles the mythology and the ending doesn’t add up to anything, including satisfaction for the viewer. 

            I thought going into this that setting a horror film in an inherently creepy place like the catacombs of Paris would at least ensure some creepy visuals, but this film even managed to let me down there.  Admittedly, they were effective in triggering my mild claustrophobia, but everything else here is downright tired.  Creepy cult people?  Check.  Dead children?  Check.  Shaky cam that blurs potentially scary images?  Check.  When even I, who is not a horror film aficionado, thinks your costume department raided the nearest Spencer’s and Hot Topic, you’ve done something terribly wrong.

            I’m sure As Above, So Below sold due to its creepy setting, but the laziness behind the camera drags this film down lower than the characters ever go.

  

Other Notes:

Ø  How did Scarlett run back to the room where she got the stone so fast?

Ø  I’m glad Scarlett’s fluent in so many languages except the one she actually needs to know.

Ø  That was the laziest way to get George down into the tombs.

Ø  Oh, that over-the-top shaky cam.  I get the conceit that he’s filming a documentary, but his shot should be steady during Scarlett’s interview.