During a blizzard and stranded at an isolated highway rest stop in the mountains, a college student discovers a kidnapped child hidden in a car belonging to one of the people inside.
“No Exit” is based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Taylor Adams. It tells the story of Darby Thorne (Havana Rose Liu), a young woman in rehab who learns about her mother’s hospitalization due to a brain aneurysm. Wanting to go home to Salt Lake City to be close to her mother, she sneaks out of the rehab facility and steals one of the orderly’s cars. Traveling through the Colorado Rockies, she gets caught in a fierce blizzard and has to seek shelter for the night at a remote highway rest stop along with four other strangers. With no phone reception inside the building, she steps outside to try and get a signal but soon discovers a young girl bound and gagged in the back of a parked van. Now Darby must try to unearth the driver’s identity and save the girl before the storm gets worse.
“No Exit” has a few nice twists and plot reveals throughout its 90-minute runtime but many of them you can see coming a mile away. Havana Rose Liu as Darby, the central protagonist, imbues enough sympathy and pathos that you can’t help but root for her, in spite of her occasional gruff and outspoken tendencies. Her desire to want to be close to her mother, in defiance of her own family’s wishes that she stay away because of her constant struggle with alcohol addiction, tears at the heartstrings and allows you to see beyond her shortcomings, trusting she will somehow save the day and finally get to see her incapacitated mother.
While “No Exit” adds nothing new to the thriller genre, it is an enjoyable 90 minutes of pure escapism. Director Damien Power manages to keep the suspense flowing proportionately and while the film races towards its inevitable conclusion, he manages to hide a few aces up his sleeve and reveal them accordingly. The cast, overall, do well in their respective roles and each plays well off one another. However, once the final credits begin to roll, you find yourself gradually forgetting “No Exit,” not because it is a bad film, rather, for the most part, it is just uninspiring, with a few flourishes of spontaneous creativity.
“No Exit” debuts on Hulu Friday, February 25th
