Sorry? Hang on? Who is headlining this rough-hewn thriller? Indie darling Lake Bell, superstar comic Owen Wilson and former cocktail- hour Bond Pierce Brosnan? We need only Miss Piggy to complete the least likely action cast of all time.
The surprising personnel, all of whom work together very well, has proved the least of the film's difficulties on its US release. No Escape would have ruffled few critical feathers if released in the 1970s, but barely a single American review has failed to level accusations of racism.
They have a point. The picture casts Wilson as an engineer travelling with his family to a generic southeast Asian country to take up a job with a water company.
The script does attempt some anti-capitalist subtext by linking the US conglomerate with the rebellion that breaks out shortly after the family arrives. But the reduction of every indigenous character to either comic buffoon or Kalashnikov-waving lunatic is highly, ahem, “problematic” (a weasel-word alternative to “racist”).
If No Escape were otherwise, worthless, then we would hardly bother complaining, but John Erick Dowdle has crafted one of the most impressively propulsive action thrillers of the season.
The violence looks as if it properly hurts and Wilson’s character, who is revealed to have some military training, is faced with plausible moral dilemmas. All of us would like to believe we would risk our lives to protect our children. But could we beat a man to death with a bit of twisted metal?
Brosnan has fun as a more downmarket version of 007, while Bell relishes the opportunity to turn avenging mother lioness after an hour of running desperately behind the guys.
It is to both No Escape's credit and discredit that it feels so much like the sort of film they used to make: before CGI and excessive ordnance got in the way of visceral action; before we bothered to represent foreigners responsibly.
Have I already used the word “problematic”?
