"No Escape" Review

OP-ROB RATING: BENCH

The new thriller, “No Escape” opens with a bloody political assassination, perpetrated by rebels in red bandanas. Forget any explanation for this startling tip-off to the movie, because the director, John Erick Dowdle, winds back the clock a few hours and puts us on a plane with Jack and Annie Dwyer (Owen Wilson and Lake Bell) and their two daughters, Beeze and Lucy (Sterling Jergins and Claire Geare). This happy family of four is headed to Southeast Asia, where Jack has been hired as a water valve engineer by a water company called Cardiff. On the flight, Beeze drops her beloved stuffed animal below her seat where it is picked up and returned by Hammond, a mysterious guy with a tiger tooth necklace played by Pierce Brosnan. Upon arriving to the airport, Hammond helps the Dwyers’ navigate through the masses of Southeast Asians and even shares a bumpy bus ride with them to the Imperial Lotus Hotel, where they all happen to be staying.

Despite excellent reviews on Trip Advisor, the Imperial Lotus Hotel turns out to be not so imperial in its accommodations. Nothing in the room works, the concierge is utterly unhelpful, and Jack can’t get his hands on a U.S. newspaper that isn’t three days old. Perhaps he should have done a smidge of research before uprooting his family and moving to a country in Southeast Asia that is festering with poverty and clearly has an unstable government. However, we are not left any time to think about how absurd Jack’s situation is. Just as he begins to dig into his stale USA Today, hordes of feverishly mad Asians in red bandanas swarm the streets and he must escape back to the crummy hotel.

Jack pilots himself back to the Lotus as if he was a local and makes it just in time to get his family to the roof of the building. From this point the movie simply goes into one narrow and improbable escape after another. This formula is not uncommon, and has been used in gripping films such as Gareth Evans’ “The Raid: Redemption” and Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity”. In “The Raid”, Evans fills the space between his close calls with bone-crunching fist fights, Cuarón opts for insightful character development. In “No Escape” the filling is far less inventive. Jack tosses his daughters off of a roof and bludgeons a man to death with little contemplation, yet when there is a lull in the action he has an untimely panic attack in a far less intense situation. When the odds of survival are low enough, Dowdle employs Hammond, who pops into the movie at various moments just in time to shoot all of the bad guys. Between these less than thrilling sequences we are given motivational pep talks on family survival from Jack and Annie.

Hammond serves up the most pathetic piece of “No Escape”, when he reveals the reason for the government overthrow. Cardiff, the water company that hired Jack, is run by heartless capitalists who have been exploiting the ambiguous country of its labor and resources for years. Hammond explains how Cardiff moves into the region promising clean water facilities, and lures the common people into crippling debt in order to pay for the water. Now that Dowdle has proved his sentiment for poor Southeast Asians, he gets back to the poor Southeast Asians mercilessly trying to kill the rich white people.

True to its title, “No Escape” offers no escapism. The film seems to be running on fumes from the opening scenes. Owen Wilson and Lake Bell are admirable victims, yet there is nothing resembling an interesting plot to support them. It is hard to feel suspense when the basis of the situation is half-baked and Pierce Brosnan is always on deck to neutralize the threat. Owen Wilson and Lake Bell should know a late-summer dud when they see one, after an experience abroad like “No Escape”, they might do their research next time.

"The Man from U.N.C.L.E." Review

OP-ROB RATING: ALL-STAR

“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is the type of movie you go into expecting nothing. Guy Ritchie hasn’t directed anything in the past decade that has lived up to the distinctiveness of his first two hit films, “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch”. The film’s two stars, Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, aren’t exactly known for their exceptional acting but rather for their good looks. We’re talking about the star of “Man of Steel” and “The Lone Ranger” here, to put things in perspective. Rounding out the low expectations is the fact that this movie is based off of a TV series from the 1960s under the same name. However, Ritchie knows his cards and doesn’t try to bluff. He knows that he is dealing Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, not theater experts like Michael Fassbender and Benedict Cumberbatch. Recognizing the capacity of his leads, Ritchie injects his subject material with lively screenplay and whole lot of style. The result is a surprising revival of a well beloved series.

The film opens with Roberta Flack’s “Compared to What” paired with a sparky montage of Cold War headlines and news reels and then immediately sends the audience to 1963, in the divided city of Berlin, Germany. Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill), is an American agent tasked with extracting a woman named Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) from the communist side of the wall. Solo, an ex-army officer turned professional thief is the Americans top secret agent, serving his government in the field in order to avoid doing time in prison. Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) is a freak athlete with a chip on his shoulder, and the Russians’ top secret agent. He is waiting for Solo on the other side of the wall with the sole mission of stopping him. Little do these two rivals know they will be forced into partnership by their governments in a joint U.S.-Soviet joint mission to save the world from a nuclear attack.

The aforementioned woman Gaby Teller, happens to have a father by the name of Dr. Udo Teller (Christian Berkel) who is a nuclear scientist with the ability to develop nuclear bombs with drastic simplicity. His knowledge could be utilized by any country or criminal organization in order to create a nuclear bomb. To the superpowers’ great dismay, Dr. Teller has gone missing, and is suspected to have been abducted by a radical faction. Ironically, Dr. Teller’s disappearance has forced the Americans and the Soviets to pool their resources in order to keep nuclear power amongst themselves. In order to find the doctor, Solo and Kuryakin are tasked with going undercover with Ms. Teller in order to link up with her estranged Uncle Rudi (Sylvester Groth) who may know his whereabouts.

Like many spy films, there are plenty of twists and turns throughout the story. What separates “U.N.C.L.E.” from any other movie of its category is how Ritchie incorporates snappy dialogue and an energizing attention to detail. One of the most appealing aspects of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is Ritchie’s use of humor. There is a competitiveness between Solo and Kuryakin that provides several laughs, each trying to prove his country better with their respective nifty gadgets and nuanced fighting techniques. The levity in the dialogue prevents “U.N.C.L.E.” from taking itself too seriously. However, Ritchie also flashes a dark side at several points during the film. In one scene a torture specialist describes his disturbing childhood and delight in working in demented laborites for the Nazis during World War II. There is a nice balance to the film that keeps it light, but packs a punch when needed.

One of my favorite scenes came near the end of the film when Solo and Kuryakin are involved in the raid of a compound. Instead of wasting ten minutes documenting each and every stage of the raid, Ritchie compacts it into a one-minute sequence. Using sliding split screens to quickly flash through each stage, Ritchie saves time and creatively cuts through what would have been a long and boring scene.

At the beginning of his career, Guy Ritchie achieved validation by masterfully capturing the grittiness, absurdity, and humor of the underground criminal world of urban England. It has been a long time since Ritchie’s first two films, and he has since picked up a taste for finer things. While “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” doesn’t have the brains of a Le Carre novel or the gravitas of a 007 flick, it is refreshing and fashionable spy thriller that breaks the mold in its competitive genre.

"Straight Outta Compton" Review

OP-ROB RATING: STARTER

“Straight Outta Compton” is a biopic directed by F. Gary Gray about the infamous rap group, N.W.A. Gray’s first priority in “Straight Outta Compton” is introducing each member of the group. Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) is presented in a high-octane scene staged in a crack den. Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) makes his first appearance in a prolonged and equally intense scene on a school bus where he is jotting lyrics in a notebook looking at what is going on all around him. Fittingly, we first meet Dr. Dre (Cory Hawkins) lying on his bedroom floor, jamming out to records with some headphones on. MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) and DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.) both appear in club scenes non-central to their own characters.

As we follow the group’s rise to fame and subsequent implosion, we get to see how the album “Straight Outta Compton” came into being with several scenes in the studio. We get a glimpse of the group’s hectic life on tour involving run ins with the police as well as hotel room shenanigans with topless women and plenty of guns. Another major component is the presence of Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), the group’s controversial manager. As a result of contract disputes and weak friendships, N.W.A. crumbles and the film breaks into three different storylines. One is that of Ice Cube and his solo career. Next is that of Eazy-E and his relationship with Heller and ultimately his life-ending battle with AIDS. Lastly is the story of Dr. Dre and his relationship with Suge Knight (R. Marcos Taylor) and Death Row Records. MC Ren and DJ Yella simply fade into the background.

“Straight Outta Compton” is entertaining, well acted and interesting enough to land on as a random movie while flipping channels. But a greater meaning is missed, and vital questions left unanswered. Gray chooses to take many different paths, and by doing so, commits to none of them. The story of N.W.A. can’t fit into two-and-a-half-hours; there are simply too many important characters. Gray explores two of them with extreme brevity, and gives the audience just a taste of what happened to the three more prominent members. In all reality, this topic should have been documented in a miniseries if the goal of giving each character his due was to be fulfilled.

Some of the most important events were left half-baked. Ice Cube releases two solo albums in what seems like five minutes, while Suge Knight bursts onto the scene as an unknown to the audience. In an instant Eazy-E loses what seems to be all of his money, and his trust with Jerry Heller is shattered over reasons that are barely referenced and never fully explained. I still don't know what the hell-er happened!

Gray is at his best in the opening scene introducing Eric “Eazy-E” Wright rolling into a crack den to collect on some unpaid debts. At this point Eric is a drug dealer, and this is simply part of the job. The location of this scene is Compton, an area in Los Angeles known for its poverty and crime. For the viewer, this house is a nightmare; a dilapidated shack filled with sweaty drug addicts, graffiti and empty 40s. For Eric, this apartment is commonplace; it is part of his reality. In many ways this particular scene feels bigger than itself. There is an atmosphere of desperation and frustration in the house, and more broadly in the streets of Compton. Gray manages to establish Eazy-E as a character, while showing us the overall surrounding.

A prominent element in the film is the tumult in and around Los Angeles during the time period. There a several scenes depicting police brutality, unfair arrests and mounting tensions. Gray also chooses to show footage of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent trial and riots that followed. N.W.A. was the voice of one side of these events, yet the narrative never explores the bigger picture.

In this iconic photo from the riots in Ferguson, Missouri you can clearly see a group of police officers taking aim at a black man with his arms up. Also in the photo is a subtle, yet powerful indication of the influence of N.W.A., the lyrics "Fuck tha Police" spray-painted onto a mailbox in the background. No matter where you stand on race issues, no matter your political beliefs, one thing is undeniable: N.W.A. struck a note of frustration that is still prevalent today. Their lyrics are a testament to their "reality” and they still echo. It is unfortunate that "Straight Outta Compton" settles for amusing yet unfulfilled storylines instead of tapping into the soul of the same nightmarish realities that haunt America today.