Why Is No Escape Rated R? A Review of the 2015 Thriller

Why is No Escape rated R? The review

John Erick Dowdle directed No Escape from a script by Drew Dowdle and himself. It stars Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, Pierce Brosnan, Sterling Jerins, Claire Geare and Sahajak Boonthanakit, and it opened in United States theaters on August 26, 2015. The film runs about 103 minutes. Its R rating comes, according to the rating bulletin cited by The Numbers, for strong violence throughout and for language. Some reviewers describe the violence as including a sexual assault, and that is the scene that parents and viewers will remember most.

The premise is a family trying to get out of an unnamed Southeast Asian country after bloodthirsty dissidents take over the whole region in about the time it takes to get a haircut. It is also the type of movie where the safe haven of Vietnam lies just beyond an old bridge marked with a bright orange banner that reads VIETNAM in big letters. That detail tells viewers how much respect the film has for its audience.

Owen Wilson plays Jack Dwyer, a businessman with a company that has found some of the area’s resources and dropped a large factory in the middle of it, like a game of Sim City. American meddling angers the local citizens, who put on red scarves, pick up guns, swords and other weapons, and go on a murderous rampage. After watching other white people shot in the head, Dwyer gathers his wife Annie, played by Lake Bell, and their two daughters, Lucy, played by Sterling Jerins, and “The Beez,” played by Claire Geare, and heads for the roof of their hotel.

After nearly dying several times at the hands of a rebel-hijacked gunship, the family teams up with a mysterious man named Hammond, played by Pierce Brosnan, and his partner Kenny Rogers, played by Sahajak Boonthanakit. They are told to escape to Vietnam, where, in a twist the filmmakers seem to think is deeply ironic, they can find asylum.

The film is wildly uneven

The first problem is who the film cares about. It is set in a part of the world with a great deal of culture and many good people, yet the only characters the story asks the audience to care about are a handful of white people. Every civilized person in the film is a white person who cannot believe what is happening. The Dwyers and the situation that triggers the uprising are underdeveloped. Why are they there? For the father’s company. What does it do? Something about water and a factory that takes water.

Meanwhile every Asian character who is not a rebel is window dressing, and insultingly so. They are clueless, nameless and helpless, or they are shown as drug addicts, prostitutes or people living in complete poverty. A fair counterpoint is that some hotel staff try to blockade the militants, so not every character is a stereotype, but the overall pattern holds.

The second problem is tone. The movie can be intense and has some suspenseful set pieces, if you are interested in the kind of intense suspense the Dowdle brothers sell. But it starts at dumb and moves on to insulting, offensive, dirty and downright ugly, and there are moments that tempt a viewer to walk out.

The scene behind the R rating

The movie is, in effect, an ongoing game of cat and mouse, and each suspense sequence depends on whether the rebels will look behind some rubble or under some canvas to find the Dwyers trembling underneath. A scene in which Annie is briefly captured by rebels encompasses all five of those adjectives.

She is beaten mercilessly. The leader pins her to the ground and punches her in the face until blood pours from her mouth. Then she is thrown onto a stone column, held down by a couple of rebels, and the leader prepares to rape her in front of her husband. Jack can only scream while the rebel smirks. A belt is unbuckled, and a zipper sounds. The music grows more shrill, building to a crescendo. It is not suspenseful. It is sick.

The comparison with the assault in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is useful. That scene works because it advances the plot and shows the physical and emotional toll on Lisbeth, who is a strong female character. In No Escape, the near-rape is used as a set piece. It is exploitation and cinematic misogyny, as if the filmmakers were winking at the audience and asking whether he will really do it.

Another sequence goes further. The rebel leader gives Beez a gun so she can shoot her own father. He also puts a gun to her head and threatens to kill her if she does not follow through. Those two scenes are what the R rating is mostly about, and they are the reason the film is hard to recommend to anyone.

Owen Wilson and Pierce Brosnan

The draw of the film is Owen Wilson’s dramatic turn, meaning that he does something other than play a comic character with an easygoing swagger. Unfortunately, he brings the same swagger to the role. Nothing changes except that he bleeds, now and then punches a man and holds a gun. It is hard to believe the family is his, and he comes across as someone plucked from a family comedy.

Brosnan does not belong either. His character is more or less a repeat of the one he played in The Matador in 2005: a heavy-drinking, chain-smoking, womanizing former government spook working for the United Kingdom or Australia. As with every other character and subplot, the film never makes it clear. He is also the comic relief, which is a baffling choice given what the filmmakers are trying to do.

The family gets help from a man who looks like a retired James Bond, and the film seems to think that is sufficient.

Visuals, repetition and a wasted premise

Beyond that, there is not much. Every sequence has the Dwyers running from the same angry people and hiding behind fences, rocks and bushes. Sometimes they disguise themselves in plain sight and walk through a mob of rebels who do not seem to notice a blond family with two children.

The cinematography and locations are irritating and grimy. Everything is bloody or caked in mud. The night photography nods to Michael Mann but lacks the style that made Mann’s films distinctive. Dowdle has talent, having directed the psychological horror films The Poughkeepsie Tapes and As Above, So Below, and the same mindset shows up here.

The film is almost a zombie apocalypse with real people in place of the zombies. With a better script and fleshed-out characters, the premise might have worked. It would not have been original, since 28 Days Later covered similar ground, but it could have worked. It does not work when Annie points at Vietnam’s bridge border and shouts that Vietnam is right there.

No Escape at a glance for parents and viewers

• Rating. R, for strong violence throughout and for language, per the rating bulletin cited by The Numbers.
• Runtime. About 103 minutes.
• Release. August 26, 2015, in United States theaters.
• Violence. Mass killings, a beating, a near-rape scene and a child threatened at gunpoint.
• Children. Two young characters are terrorized throughout, and one is ordered to shoot her father.
• Cast. Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, Pierce Brosnan, Sterling Jerins, Claire Geare and Sahajak Boonthanakit.

No Escape verdict: is the R rating earned?

The R rating is earned, and that is not a compliment. The violence is not the issue by itself, because plenty of good thrillers are violent. The issue is that here it serves nothing. The film exploits it for shock, then asks the audience to side with a family whose only distinguishing quality is that they are the ones being chased.

One of the film’s taglines asks how far you would go to survive. That question should be directed at the audience subjected to the film. The verdict is plain: skip it, and if you want an Owen Wilson drama or a survival thriller, look for one with a script that knows what it is doing.

Sources

• No Escape (2015 film), Wikipedia — cast and crew, rating and release date