The Walt Disney company is treating “No Exit” as though it were a pretty big deal.
A property of its subsidiary 20th Century Studios — the former 20th Century Fox — the suspenseful thriller is being released this week directly to the streaming platform Hulu, in which Disney has majority ownership. However, a screener for the movie was not sent to critics the way most Hulu fare is but instead via Disney’s incredibly locked-down screener platform.
An electronic document has to be signed. A giant watermark with your email address runs through the center of the screen for the entire runtime. It’s a whole thing.
Now, we realize you almost surely care neither about how critics get their screeners nor to what degree that process is a pain in the you-know-what. However, this sort of speaks to the in-between world in which “No Exit” exists.
On the one hand, director Damien Power (“Killer Ground”) — working from a screenplay by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (“Ant-Man and the Wasp”), who have adapted Taylor Adams’ 2017 novel of the same name — has crafted a movie stress-inducing enough to feel big screen-worthy.
On the other, the story is overly simple, and the movie’s cast — with one-time “24” star and Allstate Insurance pitchman Dennis Haysbert easily being the most recognizable of the faces — has a distinct TV-movie feel.
“No Exit” begins with an introduction to its flawed heroine, Darby Thorne (Havana Rose Liu), a recovering addict in her early 20s suffering through the boredom of another group therapy session at a court-assigned rehab center.
She soon learns her estranged mother has suffered a brain aneurysm and wishes to hit the road to visit her in Salt Lake City. However, because Darby has used false-family-emergency reasons to try to leave the center, she isn’t even allowed to make a phone call until a doctor signs off on it.
After borrowing another patient’s contraband mobile phone and being told by her sister in no uncertain terms not to visit, Darby steals an employee’s car and takes to the highway nonetheless.
Unfortunately, she runs afoul of nasty blizzard that closes roads, making her trip impossible for the time being, and is encouraged by a law-enforcement officer to take shelter at a nearby visitors center, as others are doing.
There, she meets four strangers: Lars (David Rysdahl, “Nine Days”), who’s socially awkward and likes playing with matches; Ash (Danny Ramirez (”The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”), who appears to be in his 20s, like Lars, but doesn’t ring any alarm bells; and middle-aged couple Ed (Hasbert) and Sandi (Dale Dickey, “Unbelievable”), who are on their way to former Marine Ed’s favorite town, Reno, Nevada.
None of them is able to get a phone signal, but, on one of her futile trips outside to try, Darby discovers that a van with Nevada plates contains a young girl who is tied up and has had her mouth taped. Whatever mistakes Darby may have made in the past, she very much wants to help the girl we will come to know as Jay, portrayed by 10-year-old Mila Harris (“Young Dylan”).
You may suspect Darby’s hunt for the answer as to who is keeping this highly problematic secret would drive most of the tension of “No Exit,” but she learns the truth fairly quickly. Instead, the drama comes largely from her navigating this potentially deadly situation. While she wants to free Jay, she doesn’t want to die — or see other innocent parties be killed — in the process.
As you’d hope from its title, where “No Exit” succeeds is in its entrapment of all its key players. Be he or she a kidnapper or merely a weary traveler, the person has nowhere to go. It’s not as if the woods surrounding the rest stop offer anything in the way of safety given the weather raging outside its walls, and no one can call for help.
A movie that comes to mind as you watch “No Exit” is Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 effort, “The Hateful Eight.” Set after the Civil War, the violent tale involves group of folks, some acquainted with each other and some not — and some with murderous intents — stuck together in a cabin during a blizzard.
“No Exit” would have benefited from at least eight players; in an era when scores of movies suffer from having too many characters, it has too few.
Instead, it features some Tarantino-ian violence, “No Exit” becoming somewhat unexpectedly gruesome in its final stretch. Be prepared to squirm on your couch, at least a little.
Liu (“Mayday,” “The Chair”) is fine in the lead role, but nothing beyond that. Without having read the novel, it’s tough to know whether this is a knock against Adams or Barrer and Ferrari, but it’s disappointing her troubled past isn’t really key to the overall story but instead just a bit of dressing. Still, she infuses Darby with the needed toughness and determination.
Haysbert, who literally had been playing God recently on Netflix’s “Lucifer,” turns in the movie’s best performance, but it’s not enough to lift “No Exit” to a meaningful degree.
On a slow weekend for movie releases — one when many of us will be faced with more cold late-winter weather, if not quite that of the blizzardous variety — you could do worse than “No Exit.”
That said, you may — especially once a nail gun comes into play — find yourself planning an exit strategy.
———
‘NO EXIT’
2 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: R (for strong violence, language and some drug content)
Running time: 1:35
Where to watch: Now streaming on Hulu
———
