![]() Starring Keegan Allen, Holland Roden, Ronen Rubinstein, Denzel Whitaker, Siya, Pasha D. Each scenario is different but the game soon starts to feel too real and everyone’s lives are put in danger. ![]() Set in Russia, the film follows an influencer as he and his friends take on Moscow’s most challenging Escape Room, streaming the whole thing. No Escape takes two of millennials’ favorite things and adds a twist on it. A Vertical Entertainment release.In the era of Escape Rooms and social media, it was only a matter of time before the two were combined. Keegan Allen, Denzel Whitaker, Holland Roden, Ronen Rubinstein, George Janko, SiyaĬredits: Written and directed by Will Wernick. MPAA Rating: R for bloody violence, grisly images, pervasive language, some graphic nudity and brief drug use He’s a writer-director in a trap of his own typing. There have been other movies titled “Escape Room,” and others titled “No Escape.” It’s a step up from “Escape Room,” but “No Escape” shows Wernick’s uphill battle to make a mark in the genre. The Russians in the cast are here for their generic hulking menace. Putting glasses on Thomas makes him “the smart one.” That’s lazy screenwriting. Even Cole is painted in broad, simplistic strokes. Most of the characters are badly under-developed. It’s the third act where “No Escape” loses its way, becomes even more generic than the “Saw” inspired puzzles and lapses into something a lot more like “Hostel,” and a limp imitation of it at best. It’s where the quintet journey from “just a game” to “What just happened?” That middle act - where one “clue” is hidden in a fresh corpse Cole must dissect - is where all the suspense and the few inventive touches to the script reside. The first act set-up does its job of laying out the terrain, the players and the stakes. The first act introduces us to this scary, alien world (Nobody in the crew speaks Russian, no subtitles are provided for the viewer, either.) where “they don’t have the same rules.”Ĭole is all “I wonder if Alexei got that” harrowing moment on camera, self-absorbed and chill. Writer-director Will Wernick, whose previous film was titled “Escape Room,” tries to write around repeating himself here. Cole has to puzzle them out of these fixes. The puzzle? He and his friends will be parked in “Bolshevik Prison,” with each of them in a cell in a torture device - The Rack, the Iron Maiden, a glass booth filling with water, an electric chair. A visit to a lavish Russian nightclub is just “Whoa, so much CONTENT” to him. There’s all this sketchy stuff going on around them, but Cole only has eyes for his audience. ![]() Besides the guns and gangsters, it’s not that bad” he uploads onto his site. “I don’t know why everybody s–t talks Russia. The odd edgy/violent encounter with foes of their host, a hipster parody of a young Russian oligarchy ( Ronen Rubenstein) doesn’t harsh Cole’s hype. Bringing along girlfriend Erin (Holland Roden) and “my best friend in the world” Thomas ( Denzel Whitaker of “Black Panther” and “Cut Throat City”) ensures that it’ll be like a vacation, right? All he and “American Gladiators” tough Samantha ( Siya from “Sisterhood of Hip Hop”) and his right-hand man Dash ( George Janko) have to do is make each hyped-to-hell adventure more gonzo than the last.Īnd this Moscow outing, to this “next-level-loaded” Russian oligarch’s escape room complex, promises to be just that. He’s accomplished at selfie live-streaming and a master of hype. He, with his team, promises to “take you somewhere you’ve probably never been” seeing and doing something “you would never do.” ![]() Keegan Allen of TV’s “Pretty Little Liars” is Cole Turner, a gonzo “Escape Real Life” vlogger/adrenalin salesman. But as for the grisly chills and suspense presented by that predicament, it delivers the goods. It may not do the best job of putting-us-in-the-hero’s predicament. ![]() “No Escape,” a “Saw” like murder-puzzle thriller originally titled “Follow Me,” hits enough of its marks to earn a “not half bad” label. ![]()
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