NO ESCAPE

Preposterous plot, nonetheless compelling, riveting; manipulative, exploitive; sensationalistic, exaggerated from commencement to conclusion. “Jack Dwyer”, having bombed in his profession in the US, drags his family to some unnamed Southeast Asian country, where he is hired, by a mega- corporation, to purify their water supply; neglecting to delve into the xenophobia of the population, they arrive in the middle of a bloody insurrection; for 36 hours they flee the rebels, flying off roofs, escaping tanks, barrage of bullets, hatches; butchering, smoldering, fervently maniacal revolutionaries lust for their annihilation.

Owen Wilson (Jack Dwyer) and Lake Bell, “Annie Dwyer” gallantly gift “guts and glory” to their roles as protective parents; daughters “Lucy” (Sterling Jerins) and “Breeze” (Claire Geare) valiantly and tearfully struggle to overcome death-defying, dumbfounding hurdles.  The narrative, gluttonously infused with countless, “Are you okay’s?”, “Are you all right’s?”; a minimal script transcended by the frenzied, fevered action.

Totally unwarranted, ineffectual is the role of “Hammond” (whiskered, “whiskyed” Pierce Brosnan) a vague, innocuous British agent; possible “poetic license” in a situation bereft of poetry.

There is no escaping writers Drew and John Erick Dowdle’s (director) jingoism saturating the Asian country; underlying greed pervasive in Western corporations (the media perpetually paints any profitable business or businessman as untoward); felled with daunting, haunting realism of today’s world, question the validity of this fictional scenario.

TWO STARS!!

Peneflix