NO EXIT

Damien Power’s snowy thriller asks the question “who can you trust?….”

Now and again you need a film in your life in which you can knock a few brain cells off and just sit back and enjoy. Damien Power’s new thriller doesn’t try to reinvent the thriller genre nor does it offer anything we haven’t seen before, but for fans wanting an easy watch on a weekend, then it fits the bill nicely.

Havana Rose Liu stars as Darby, a recovering addict who during a stint in rehab receives a phone call that her estranged mother has suffered a brain aneurysm and is in hospital. Being refused leave, Darby breaks out and drives to Salt Lake City to be with her, the trouble is she decides to travel in a raging blizzard that closes all the main roads which forces her to end up in a visitors centre among strangers waiting for the weather to pass.

The small cast of characters are soon introduced. We have the usual dependable Dennis Haysbert playing a former marine alongside his wife Sandi (Dale Dickey), and two young men: the handsome Ash (Danny Ramirez) and the odd Lars (David Rysdahl), who you’ll find yourself instantly wary of.

With the usual no phone service cliché, the group pass the time by getting to know each other and then playing cards- one game in particularly playing a pivotal part in proceedings – that is until Darby goes outside and discovers a small girl (Mila Harris) tied and gagged in the back of a van which makes her realise that one of the strangers is a kidnapper. But who?

What follows is a twisty caper that tries its hardest to grab you with a whodunnit angle, but most of the twists you’ll see coming, bar one little turn of events that had me looking up and thinking “well done!”.

There are some illogical decisions made by the characters that will leave you shaking your head in frustration, but overall to his credit, Power manages to create a surprisingly amount of tension that builds to a violent showdown with a nail gun proving highly effective that will please many and while No Exit won’t win any awards for originality, it does prove to be a perfect lazy viewing, which lets be honest, we all need in our movie lives at times….