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Sunday, September 6, 2015

No Escape (2015)

An American family relocates to Southeast Asia when the father (Owen Wilson) gets a job with an engineering firm. But within 24 hours of arriving in the country (probably Laos), the family finds themselves in the midst of a bloody political coup and one with an anti-American bias. On the upside, the film perfectly captures the terror of finding oneself in a foreign country during political upheaval and suddenly finding out that you're the enemy! On the downside, the family at the core of the drama is a ghastly cliche of an American family right down to its two stereotypical movie kids whose whining ("I'm scared", "I'm hungry", "I need to go potty") constantly places the family in harms way. To the film's credit, it does acknowledge the foreign imperialism that is often the cause of such revolutions in the first place. In the end, despite a few superbly done sequences (the helicopter attack on the roof), the film is a misfire. I won't even go into the revolting sappy ending. Unevenly directed by John Erick Dowdle. With Pierce Brosnan, Lake Bell and Sahajak Boonthanakit.   

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