When US Naval Lieutenant Commander Tom Farrel (Kevin Costner), begins a passionate affair with Susan Atwell (Sean Young) everything seems dandy for the handsome young sailor, however what Tom doesn’t know is that Susan is already a mistress to someone else, the Secretary Of Defence, David Brice (Gene Hackman) to be exact.
Tom knows he’s playing a dangerous game but the two lovers are quickly falling for one another therefore continue their sordid love affair. One night while on holiday together, Brice turns up to see his mistress, Tom is forced to flee the house but not before Brice realises that Susan is sleeping with another man. Angrily he slaps her leaving her to fall from the 1st floor through a glass table, instantly killing her. Brice is ready to confess but after a quiet word from a good friend they decide to cover it up, instead implicating her lover. The only thing left is to find out who Susan was having an affair with and place him firmly in the frame for murder…
I was looking forward to seeing this film, it has a stellar cast and an intriguing premise, both of which I thought would lead to an excellent thriller, unfortunately it didn’t turn out to be that. This film is widely thought of as a classic film and one of Costner’s best; agreed, Kevin Costner has made some stinkers
but he’s also made some really good films and to say this is one of his best is a little insulting.
Thrillers, for me, can either reach one extreme or the other, they can either be fantastic or dire and unfortunately No Way Out fits into the latter category, in this case nothing seems to go right in the films format. It’s 114 minutes long and unfortunately 60 odd minutes of this is engorged with the affair, some might argue that it’s setting the scene and yes I agree it was necessary to witness the affair in order to know what’s going on however it could have been done in half the time.
The plot is extremely slow and contrived, the affair between Tom and Susan is incomprehensible, they meet at a party, have a brief chat, next thing you know they’re having passionate sex in the back of a limo. Yes this is Hollywood and things are always overstated but for this film to work the relationship between the two of them has to be believable and sadly it wasn’t believable in the slightest. I would liked to have seen more of a build up to their affair, maybe with Susan declining at first before giving into temptation, it would have given the film some much needed credibility because if you’ve seen the film you’ll know that this is the crucial part and if you don’t completely believe the affair it will make the film a lot less enjoyable (not that it was enjoyable anyway).
Another downfall regarding the film would be that there wasn’t a decent villain, I’ve seen a few Gene Hackman films and found him to be an excellent actor so I assumed that after killing Susan he was going to portray a believable villain however he turns out to be a bit of a pussycat and it’s left to his assistant to become the much needed bad guy. This is another contrived part of the plot because he’s got no reason to play the bad guy, rumours of homosexuality are hinted at throughout the film however these never come to any conclusion so it’s left to the audience’s imagination as to why Scott Pritchard (Will Paton) becomes the unwanted villain. Having said that, he does play the role of the antihero well, giving him a sinister edge which leads you to think that nobody’s safe.
Kevin Costner was the best part in the film, he was very believable as the Navy Officer caught up in a conspiracy plot and the fact that he became the leading officer in the investigation gave the film a nice twist however his character showed no real sense of urgency or emotion. Throughout the film you never see a glimpse of emotion from Tom Farrel even when he finds out that Susan has been killed, for a man that’s supposedly in love you’d think that he’d evoke a little emotion given that the woman he loves has been murdered but no, this just adds to the suspicion floating around their relationship. Kevin Costner didn’t give his character any likeable qualities either which is vital for any hero to have in order for the audience to get behind him.
After the initial hour where the audience is subjected to 60 whole minutes of nothing I was hoping the film would finally heat up when the murder occurs, I was hoping for a strong, suspenseful plotline with lots of twists along the way. That isn’t what I got, the film continued to teeter along at it’s unbearably slow pace for the rest of the film. The plot isn’t well explained which leaves the audience feeling redundant, you’re watching the film yet with a lack of information you’re unable to become enthralled and involved in the storyline. There were a few scenes which captured me, one in particular I thought was good which involved Kevin Costner being chased by two men in a car and then on foot, this was very tense however the scene lasted a mere five minutes before returning to it’s usual lacklustre pace. I don’t usually mention music in a film review however I can’t avoid it in this review because it was absolutely terrible. It was like watching a 60’s cop show, it tried so hard to build up tension yet it made the film seem infantile and laughable.
Overall I wouldn’t recommend this, it’s a slow, jerky thriller which fails to establish any sort of plotline, even the twist at the end which was quite clever didn’t do anything for me because I found the build up so utterly dull. The two pieces of information that were going to link Brice and Farrel to the murder were laughable and it takes any sort of credibility that this movie thought it had and throws it down the drain. The characters weren’t any better, Kevin Costner was just about the best thing in the film and that’s by no means a compliment, another character who was, to my mind in the film for no other reason than self promotion and film promotion was African supermodel Iman. She looked completely out of place in the film and I almost found it funny when Tom told her to disappear for her own safety; she’s about 5’9, African, with a perfect figure therefore making it pretty difficult for a woman like that to blend in with the crowd. Sadly the entire film follows this incomprehensible tone and makes for a very disappointing thriller which could have been so much better.
The DVD is currently available from play.com for £3.99.
The special features include: Collectable Booklet Containing Fascinating Facts Behind The Film Original Theatrical Trailer
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Advantages: intense suspense, Costner looks great, smooth and slick, Pritchard the sinister aide! Disadvantages: superfluous ending twist, subsequent viewings not as good as first, lack of extras on DVD
BlueDruid 24.06.2007 (03.12.2007)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of No Way Out (DVD)
Advantages: intense suspense, Costner looks great, smooth and slick, Pritchard the sinister aide! Disadvantages: superfluous ending twist, subsequent viewings not as good as first, lack of extras on DVD
BlueDruid 24.06.2007 (03.12.2007)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of No Way Out (DVD)
![No Way Out [DVD] [1988]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78526320.jpg "No Way Out [DVD] [1988]")
Aug 24th, 2009
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