No Exit

2022 - 2 - 25

Post cover — Image courtesy of "Roger Ebert"

No Exit movie review & film summary (2022) | Roger Ebert (Roger Ebert)

It's one of those films that deftly teeters on the edge of utter nonsense, and the balancing act becomes part of the escapist fun.

It’s tempting to say that “No Exit” works best if you turn off your brain, and I feel like there’s a stronger version with sharper dialogue and a more pronounced sense of claustrophobic tension in terms of space. It helps that Power admirably holds it together in terms of craft, getting brutal enough to remind people that he made “ Killing Ground” while also having a stronger eye than a lot of streaming original directors, especially in the chaotic final act. Let’s just say there are a lot of secrets in that rest stop, and while some may be put off by the coincidences and contrivances, “No Exit” works better as it piles up the insanity. She flees the rehab facility she’s in—a detail that adds to her vulnerability and sense of overall panic—to try and drive to get to her mother, despite the protestations of her sister. Darby has to figure out who’s dangerous enough to kidnap a child and how she can save the girl in the middle of a snowstorm. If you’re a fan of those ‘00s standalone thrillers, check out "No Exit" before it gets crushed in the next wave of streaming content.

'No Exit' Review: Who's Bluffing? (The New York Times)

In “No Exit,” the director Damien Power gets straight to business: Darby (Havana Rose Liu) is stuck in rehab and groaning her way through another group ...

Imagine a compressed, significantly downgraded, true-crime-adjacent version of “The Hateful Eight,” another snowy chamber drama that devolves into gunplay and brutal bloodshed. Darby — edgy and impetuous — hot-wires a nurse’s car and zooms off toward the hospital where her mother is. In “No Exit,” the director Damien Power gets straight to business: Darby (Havana Rose Liu) is stuck in rehab and groaning her way through another group therapy session when she gets a call about her mother, who has suffered a brain aneurysm.

Here's How 'No Exit' Overcomes Its Flaws - Hollywood in Toto (Hollywood in Toto)

No Exit delivers one twist too many, but the rest of the film offers mystery, suspense and a heroine worth our admiration.

Much of “No Exit” feels old fashioned in the purest sense. “No Exit” risks plenty by sharing much of the motivations in play mid-film, but the mechanics of the story keep our attention. And a late twist, which supercharges the danger, also crushes the sense of reality the film flirted with until then. A blizzard short circuits her escape, and she’s forced to hang tight at a visitors’ center to wait out the storm. “No Exit” begins like an Agatha Christie whodonnit but shows its cards earlier than expected. Havana Rose Liu is Darby, a troubled teen going through the rehab motions.

Review: Hulu thriller 'No Exit' (Los Angeles Times)

'No Exit' review: Director Damien Power hints at horror with this adaptation of Taylor Adams' novel.

There is a bit of Sartre’s trademark existentialism, with Darby taking charge of her own fate, but this “No Exit” reeks more of nihilism. Darby (Havana Rose Liu) escapes from court-mandated drug rehab to visit her mother in the hospital, but a blizzard stops her progress at a remote park‘s visitor center. Initially, “No Exit” looks like another iteration of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” with its group of stranded strangers and an unknown criminal in their midst.

Rest Stop Thriller No Exit Gets Lost in the Storm (Paste Magazine)

Circumstantial serendipity is always a shaky place to build a story premise upon. In No Exit, the mystery-thriller from director Damien Power based upon ...

Rose Liu is the standout with her resilient take on Darby. In her hands, she is clearly a young woman who has been through a lot—it’s going to take a lot to rattle her. That murkiness also applies to others in the ensemble, especially when it comes to clear motivations. Power does get points for keeping No Exit’s runtime to a brisk and lean 90 minutes, but he doesn’t have as deft a handle on all the other various working parts of the story. By the second act, it becomes more apparent that a duck is a duck. Lingering shots of dull rehab paintings, strangely framed hallways and an odd non sequitur dream/memory when Darby is sleeping in her car all come across like obnoxious nudges from the film telling us to perk up and question what we’re seeing. The “box” in this scenario is actually a van with blacked-out windows in the rest stop parking lot.

Hulu's 'No Exit' Proves Dennis Haysbert Is A Lot More Than Just The ... (Decider)

Dennis Haysbert, aka the Allstate Guy, stars in No Exit on Hulu, as Ed, proving he's much more than the "you're in good hands" guy.

But the year is 2022, and Dennis Haysbert just gave us another incredible performance in No Exit on Hulu. It feels high time we stopped calling him “the Allstate guy” and started calling him Dennis Haysbert… even if we are in good hands. In 2002, he starred as the gardener, Raymond Deagan, in the period drama Far From Heaven, alongside Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid—a role that earned him multiple award nominations for Best Supporting Actor. And 24 fans know Haysbert as David Palmer, while Lucifer fans no doubt know him as God. It’s far from the first time that Haysbert has delivered an exemplary performance over the course of his career, and, yes, I’m including the Allstate commercials in that.