No Escape

No Escape (2015) begins with an American engineer moving his family to a country in Southeast Asia. There is a coup the day they arrive, rebels take the streets and start targeting foreigners, and the family tries to escape beginning from the hotel roof. Technically it is well built. Director John Erick Dowdle keeps events at the family's eye level, in confined spaces, close to real time, and the jump between rooftops is the tensest thing in it. The problem is the country. The film never names where it is set; it was shot in Thailand and mixes the rebels' language with cultural signals from elsewhere. No local character is given a name and almost all of them are framed as a threat. That is the main criticism levelled at it, and it is fair. Its political explanation is contested too. The uprising is attributed to a Western water company entering the country, so the film names the cause and then uses it only to explain the danger to an American family. Owen Wilson plays the engineer, Lake Bell his wife and Pierce Brosnan an Englishman. Wilson appearing outside comedy was the notable thing at the time. It runs 103 minutes. Good for: survival tension, family centred action, and short fast genre filmmaking. Less good for: the depiction of local people is seriously objectionable. The violence is heavy and the danger to the children is constant. The characters' decisions are irrational at times.