No Escape (1994)

That was an excellent one.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This film has at last been released on Blu-Ray, though apparently only in Australia. It was a good excuse to see it again, I remember how much I liked it when I first saw it many years ago. It's a prescient vision of a horrible future (but only four years away now!) when prisons are run by private firms for profit and recalcitrant prisoners are sent to the island of Absolom to finish each other off. The plot, such as it is, provides lots of opportunities for gory scenes and exuberant special effects, and the landscapes look even lusher in high definition. There are some great performances, but my favourite has to be Ian McNeice as the hypochondriac and finicky Tom King, who more than makes up for the total absence of women in the film. Enjoy.

This one was a favorite of mine back in my High-School days. I watched it countless times. In fact, I even had the movie poster on the wall of my room at one time. The last time I watched it was probably about 15 years ago. I was going through my VHS collection and trying to find something to watch I hadn't viewing in awhile and saw this. So, I grabbed it and threw it in.This one actually holds up fairly well. It wasn't quite as good as I remembered, but it's still a solid film. I think the premise is actually interesting. Kind of an adult version of Lord of The Flies but they are there for more nefarious reasons. The cast is great. A lot of very solid actors, both ones you'd know by name and others you'd recognize by their faces. There are some fairly good action sequences, but for the most part, it's not overly heavy on that aspect. This is a very story driven movie. The FXs are solid and the score fits the film well. I think the listing of the film as an Action, Drama, Sci-Fi is right on the button. Very heavy on the Drama and Action, light on the sci-fi, but those elements are all there.It's a longer film which is one thing that might put a damper on viewing for some people, especially if you're going in expecting a mile a minute action thriller. It does have some weaker points, but they're not anything that would ruin the movie for you. I think most of those things are also subjective to the person watching's personal taste.I'm glad I finally saw this again. While I remembered a lot of it, there were a few moments I didn't. While I did enjoy it, it isn't one that I need to have on DVD or Blu-Ray. I might snag a copy and upgrade if I could find it for cheap, but for the time being my VHS copy still serves its purpose.My Rating: 7/10

No Escape is the type of flick that Stallone or Schwarzenegger would have headlined, had it been given a higher budget and major studios presence. It's almost better that it didn't, because instead we got a scrappy little post apocalyptic actioner starring a cheeky, roughneck Ray Liotta, who you just can never say no to when he shows up. He plays J.T. Robbins here, an army official who's been disgraced and stripped of his title following an incident involving a superior officer. He's being shipped off to Absolon, a remote island that's been fashioned into a massive prison for convicts who are never to be released. Two groups of prisoners inhabit Absolon: a piratical group of violent miscreants led by flamboyant Walter Marek (Stuart Wilson commands attention with his uproariously weird performance), and a peaceful tribe of hut dwellers, presided over by father (Lance Henriksen). Robbins wants only to escape, a prospect that has been fervently shot down in his face by Absolon's overbearing Warden (Michael Lerner). Using his military cunning and inherent brute force, he tries to start a war between the two factions and raise enough of a commotion to make a break for it. What he doesn't count on is his fondness for the people within Father's group, and his eventual need to get some of the, out as well. It's pure aged mid 90's dystopian action cheese, and a delight for any lovers of the gourmet dish. Liotta is strong, silent and nasty when provoked, a great antihero. Henriksen is unusually compassionate and reserved, and Wilson struts around without any inhibitions, wearing his best grade school play face chomping scenery like a wildebeest. Watch for work from Kevin Dillon, Ian McNeice and Ernie Hudson as well. A lighthearted romp with its heart in the right place and the competence to back it up.

To simply describe this movie, it is a version of Lord of the Flies. The idea is that isolated from civilisation, people become like animals. This is partially true in this movie but moreso it seems to fall apart when we see one group of people who are developing their own civilisation. Still, this is similar to Lord of the Flies were one group became savage and hostile, while the others tried to become more civilised.This movie, though, is based on another book: The Penal Colony by Richard Herley and supposedly it is supposed to be a critique on the prison system. In the film, the prisons are supposed to be money making corporations where prisoners assigned there are reduced to slave labour. Basically there is a hierarchy, and the island Absolom is at the top. Prisoners who prove to be too troublesome to turn into slave labourers are banished to the island and are left to fend for themselves. The prison is nice to drop in small amounts of food, but most of the time the inhabitants must scrounge for themselves.If this is supposed to be a critique on the prison system, there seems to be a huge lack of it. What I saw in this movie was a treatise on the savagery of humanity, and the warden is actively trying to encourage the savagery. If they are civilised then they might turn against him, so if they are busy fighting, then all the better. The weird thing I noticed, is that the warden personally came to the island to deal with the problem. Thus he was sticking his neck out in a way that was purely illogical. It seemed to be an excuse to get him there to kill him.