Inescapable: Movie Review

Move over Liem Neeson, we've got an Arab action dad to idolize…. Well sort of.

Inescapable follows Adib Abdel Kareem (Alexander Siddig) a mild-mannered Canadian-Arab with a shady past who has to return to Syria to rescue his daughter after he finds out that she has been kidnapped in Damascus. His past is inescapable, fortunately this movie is.

I really, really wanted to like this movie. I mean how often do you get a non-white action hero? Well sure, sometimes you have Black or Latino heroes, and yeah even Asians, but who would have thought that Arabs would join the ranks of disgruntled middle-aged action heroes with questionable pasts.

Unfortunately, Inescapable is a bad movie and there are no two ways about it. Bad acting, bad pacing, quasi-interesting story line that was poo-pooed with unnecessary plot twists, and overuse of ominous music to create sense of danger when there was no need for it, and god awful action scenes. Speaking of action, you would think an action movie would have some action in it right? Well Inescapable is the diplomatic action movie. Don’t beat your way through the bad guys you call the bureaucrats.

I’d say the only few good things about this movie is that it’s 1 hour and 30 minutes and Marisa Tome was the saving grace. She’s a good actress and was wasted in this movie. Lastly Alexander Siddig is sort of a believable action hero. He’s tall, looks in shape, and the man can paint a mean mug.

If this movie is so bad, then why should you be watching it? Well for starters it’s the only one of its kind. Not an action film mind you; an Arab action film. As awful as this movie is I’d still say check it out. It’s not very long and is a welcoming take on Arabs. Arabs are always portrayed in Hollywood as either terrorists or extremely apologetic for being Arab/Muslim. They’re either blowing up stuff or apologizing and defending Islamic/Arab culture. So there was no question in my mind that I would watch this movie even though you could tell from the trailers that it’s a 'Taken' clone. 

And lastly and most importantly if we don’t support movies like these they won’t make any more of them. Money talks, pure and simple, so to potentially see better action movies with maybe younger heroes we need to start supporting movies like Inescapable.

Inescapable gets a high Cineophantic recommendation.