In this globalized age, Hollywood studios can no longer afford to trample over local sensibilities. Earlier this year it was revealed that an upcoming thriller about an American family caught in a Southeast Asian revolution would be having its title changed from "The Coup" to the less provocative "No Escape."
Was it because the producers had realized it might be a trifle insensitive at a time when Thailand — where "No Escape" was shot — was still in the grip of a military junta? Nothing of the sort. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the name was changed because it hadn't tested well with American audiences, who weren't sure what a "coup" was. It's a fitting summary for this clumsy lump of dumbness, which takes a complex geopolitical situation and reduces it to an exotic backdrop for yet another tale of white people in peril.
Owen Wilson does his well-honed everyman routine as Jack Dwyer, an engineer who's moving to the other side of the world to start a new life with his attractive young family. (The film was shot in Chiang Mai and Lampang, but the name of the country is deliberately omitted — a mercy which the locals should probably be grateful for.)