No Exit

During a blizzard, college girl stuck in this cabin with some strangers and find a kidnapped girl in a van. Then the college girl (and all the character) starts to made a string of poor choices. Shocking, i know. The general premise of No Exit though not groundbreaking, sounds interesting. At first glance, it seems like it's gonna be a whodunit mystery-thriller, but then things takes turns, and another turn and another, and another... you get what i'm saying. Good on paper, bad on practice. Though some of these turns are fun and bold, it makes this film messy.

You would think with all these 'plot twist' that the ending would be somewhat unpredictable, right? Wrong. The ending is as generic as it can get. Overall, No Exit has a very weak script, dull-cringeworthy-professional poor-decision-maker characters. I guess the highlight of this film is some of the gore are pretty gory... (ba dum tss), the acting is decent, the run time and the pace are adequate.

It's a mindless insomnia watch, but definitely skippable 5.8/10.

As "No Exit" (2022 release; 95 min.) opens, we are introduced to Darby, a young woman who is in rehab. When Darby learns that her mother has gone to the hospital, Darby makes her escape and steals a car. Alas, there is a blizzard coming and Darby must shelter in a remote visitors center with 4 other stranded people... At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is directed by Damien Power (in just his 2nd feature length). Here he brings Taylor Adams' novel of the same name onto the screen. I can't tell for sure, but this has all the feelings of a COVID-19 production: almost the entire movie plays out in a single location (the Visitors Center), and with a small cast. The initial 30 minutes are a bit slow, but then the movie finds a second gear, so to speak, and really kicks in. This movie is super plot-heavy so the less said, the better. All but one of the cast were no-names to me. The only one I recognized was Dennis Haysbert. Bottom line: this isn't going to get any awards nominations, but I quite enjoyed my time with this.

"No Exit" was originally intended to be released in theaters, but resulting from the COVID mess, it got delayed and delayed and then finally pulled from the schedule altogether. It recently started airing on Hulu, where I caught it the other night. If you are in the mood for a scary kidnapping drama/thriller, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

This movie starts off strong with an interesting whodunnit premise centered around our main character who we get just enough backstory to care about. Not a single other character is given but a few minutes of dialogue to flesh them out so you end up not really caring about anyone else or what happens to them. The pacing was all over the place and there's really not enough that happens to justify a 90 minute movie.

Very early on we switch genres from whodunnit mystery to mostly straight up thriller which I found disappointing and kind of boring. The description of this movie is very misleading and I think it will leave a lot of folks disappointed because it does not match the movie I watched. It's worth checking out if you consume a lot of movie media and are looking to watch something you haven't seen, but it's very average.

What was supposed to be a horror movie turned into a crime scene pretty quick. The typical "don't judge a book by it's cover" is the theme of the movie.

With a 1.5 hour runtime, the movie doesn't beat around the bush and gets to the point pretty quick - another pro.

"No Exit" is a quick, fast paced 95 minutes that features a good story and a great lead performance.

What I liked about this movie is of course as I said the lead. Havana Rose Liu is great in this movie. She gets to shine a lot here. All the other performances too are mostly pretty good. The movie is very fast paced. It's gets to the plot very quick The story I also really like. It defiantly takes inspiration from other movies, but it's intriguing enough. There's some really great tension in the final 20 minutes of the movie. And finally I like how at times they presented some of the twists. It was actually kinda shocking.

Now this isn't an amazing movie and it does have its issues. It is derivative of some other thrillers. The movie isn't as intense as I wanted it to be. I think there could've been a little more tension, and finally the movie kinda just abruptly ended and it just felt like the movie didn't know how to end.

Overall despite being a little derivative of other movies, "No Exit" is a quick, fast paced thriller with a great lead performance, and enough intrigue to keep you interested.