By Kevin Nickelson
A bleak, snowbound location. A small group of disparate strangers. A horrific secret uncovered. A heroine in complete mental and detoxification spiral. An ardent viewer of thriller fare will recognize the tropes being dusted off for use in director Damien Power’s latest chill show No Exit, produced by 20th Century Studios and Flitraft for streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus. The movie manages to drudge out the familiar yet give it just enough dressing to make it a compelling view even as many of the twists and turns feel telegraphed at times.
A young woman springs herself from an in-house drug rehabilitation program during a bleak winter’s eve when she receives a phone call that her terminally ill mother is in a hospital several hours away and not expected to survive. The girl opts to steal her therapist’s car and make a perilous drive through the mountains (in a driving snowstorm no less). Road closure forces her to seek shelter for the night at a nearby visitor’s center, where she meets four others also hunkering down. Accidentally spotting a little girl tied up inside a van in the parking lot, the heroic Darby discovers that someone in the group is a kidnapper and that these unfortunate souls may not survive the night.
The isolation setting works to build the sense of dread and the locations in Auckland, New Zealand provide a real sense of bleakness for the shock moments to have an added effect. Power chooses to slow build the tension at first, using dialogue-heavy scenes and slow tracking (occasionally static, in fact) camera shots. Character revelation is done carefully, with deliberate purpose. It is only in the final third that a true air of horror is generated, with grisly killings piling up and truths being revealed. There are some particularly nerve-flinching moments that will have even devoted fans of grotesqueries turning their heads away for an instant. Havana Rose Liu, as Darby, stands out amongst the cast. A lifetime of beatings at the hands of inner demons has her a shell of a human, reaching for any foothold to get her life back and determined to see her mom just one more time before she leaves this mortal coil. There is a quiet strength, a resolve as it were, that grows within her through the course of the night’s events that proves she is not yet ready to toss off this life and her future. Danny Ramirez and David Rysdahl, as Ash and Lars, Handle playing the fringe of society cast-offs who are key to the story, very well. A bit of weird charisma to draw a moviegoer in. Only veteran Dennis Haysbert (President Palmer in the early 2000s tv series 24 and the spokesperson for Allstate Insurance) disappoints in a one-dimensional role as a Marine veteran red herring. It smacks very much of his role being merely for marquee value as opposed to key necessity for story. Dale Dickey, as Haysbert’s nurse wife has a nice turn and the twist involving her was, indeed, something of a surprise.
Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari concoct a fairly fresh screenplay (from the novel by Taylor Adams) rife with juicy dialogue and the occasional surprise turn. For once, the motivations and actions of the characters did not feel dumbed down for strict contrivance purposes. The brooding score by Marco Beltrami and Miles Hankins, underscores doom and gloom surrounding the players involved in the story nice.
It would’ve been intriguing to see what Logan screenwriter Scott Frank, who was originally attached to develop and produce this project, would’ve done with it. As good as Barrer and Ferrari are (Ant-Man is a load of fun), Frank may well have brought even a darker, edgier angle to the story. Still, if you are looking for fare that, by end result, is a refreshing redress of old thriller formulas, have a gander at No Exit. It manages to entertain and provide just enough different tweaks to satisfy. All while not shirking from the gleeful gore moments!