Let's take a hypothetical situation. Go back about ten years in your own film going history, you go to a movie, you like it, you garner a good deal of enjoyment out of it, over the next couple of years you, perhaps, rent the film a couple of times, and you still like it, you may even see other films from the same director and enjoy them, therefore building him up in your mind as a talented director. Now, fast forward back to the present, you pick up a copy of said film on DVD, by now you are a different viewer than you were back then, for better or worse. Then you pop that disk in and take in the film through your new, time changed eyes, as you watch it, something dawns on you. It is not a good movie. No Escape is one of those films for me.
I originally saw it on the big screen way back in 1994, I was still a teen back then, and being a bit more superficial in my viewing I really liked it. I still liked it for a few years, renting it a few times, but it soon fell of the radar. I found the DVD on the budget rack, so I picked it up, popped it in, and finally realized that it is not a good movie at all. It's not bad because of the look, it still looks good and has plenty of decent action, it's not because of the performances, a bit campy at times, but fitting. The problem with the film is the writing, the story just does not make any sense.
Hopefully, you have seen the film prior to reading this as, for what it's worth contains spoilers.
The basic idea behind the movie is that a soldier kills his commanding officer and is sentenced to prison. This film, taking place in the future, has a different prison system than what we have today. In this future, prisons are big business, they are run by huge corporations. The island that our hero is sentenced to literally has no walls or guards, the inmates are just dumped there and must fend for themselves. For the length of the film, the hero, Robbins (Ray Liotta) is trying to get off the island, despite being welcomed into the encampment of the "good" inmates led by The Father (Lance Henriksen), who are at odds with Marek (Stuart Wilson) and his hoard. Meanwhile, the "warden" is subtlely encouraging the fighting that is going on between these two groups.
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