For the Fans: "No Escape" derivative but well-paced and suspenseful for a long time

No Escape (2020)

In that tradition of film titles copying one another, “No Escape” (or is it “Follow Me”?) happens to be slightly better than its generic and derivative title would suggest, though “derivative” might be the operative word here. 2005’s “Hostel” and 2019’s “Escape Room”—and then 1986’s “April Fool’s Day” and 1997’s “The Game”—are just a couple of the films in which this thriller finds commonalities. That surely doesn’t stop writer-director Will Wernick (who made another “Escape Room” in 2017) from still executing a decent setup and effective moments for a quick, pretty engaging 91 minutes. In terms of fresh content, "No Escape" doesn't quite have it, but it grabs you here and there before thinking it's more clever than it is. 

Insta-famous social media personality Cole Turner (Keegan Allen) is all about pushing a thrill-seeker’s limits when it comes to his popular vlog. When his patient girlfriend Erin (Holland Roden) and friends—X Games badass Sam (Siya), frat boy-type Dash (George Janko), and loyal best friend Thomas (Denzel Whitaker)—book them all a flight to Moscow for the 10th anniversary of his vlog, they have a surprise in store for Cole. Through Dash’s Russian connection Alexei (Ronen Rubinstein), a posh playboy, Cole and his posse get treated like celebrities, all the more for Cole to live-stream to his followers. The real surprise turns out to be an escape room, a grimy, abandoned Russian prison, where Cole must solve a series of puzzles in order to save Erin and his friends from torture devices. It’s all for show, though, right?

“No Escape” begins as a slick, well-paced, and reasonably suspenseful thriller, making us feel the veritable danger these characters experience. When Cole gets dragged into a room with a male corpse on a slab, a “X” marking the spot on his abdomen that hides a key, it’s a grisly highlight quite reminiscent of the first “Saw.” Director Will Wernick knows how to ratchet up the tension when every friend is caught in their own torture device, one being trapped in an iron maiden that’s slowly closing and another in a sound-proof tank that will fill with water any minute. At some point, though, even as the stakes must rise, “No Escape” becomes another exercise in sadism, while attempting to make a point about social media being as “real” as an escape room. Where Wernick takes things aren’t as much of a complete shock as he probably hopes, but it’s not a bad game to watch beforehand.

Grade: C +

Vertical released "No Escape" (91 min.) on digital and video on demand platforms on September 18, 2020.