Inescapable (2012) Alexander Siddig, Joshua Jackson, Marisa Tomei, Oded Fehr Movie Review

Inescapable (2012)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Alexander Siddig in Inescapable (2012)

A Take on Taken

It was just another day at the corporation which Adib (Alexander Siddig) worked for until a friend shows up and tells him that his eldest daughter who he thought was in Greece on a photography assignment had gone to Damascus to learn more about her father's past, a past he doesn't talk about. And there is a good reason as Adib had once been part of the Syrian Military Intelligence Service until he was accused of treason and forced to flee to Canada where he became a naturalized Canadian citizen. Now with his daughter missing Adib is forced to return to Syria to try and find her whilst confronting things he left behind, including Fatima (Marisa Tomei) the woman he once loved but abandoned when he fled.

A thinking man's "Taken" is what I am guessing they were going for with "Inescapable" focusing more on arranging deals, various connections, secrets, lies and so on rather than being an action movie where one man turns killing machine to get his daughter back. Trouble is that it takes itself incredibly seriously which means that we get lots of dry dialogue, lingering looks, slow camera work and sadly none of it is as captivating as it thinks it is. Even all the revelations about Adib's past and the bad blood that others have towards him fail to captivate. And sadly I could go on as the simmering romantic sub plot surrounding Adib and Fatima just meanders along.

Marisa Tomei in Inescapable (2012)

The annoying thing about all this is that everyone involved plays their part well with Alexander Siddig bringing a nice level of complexity to his character making him concerned but also scarily confident. Then there is Marisa Tomei who hides her natural accent nicely and brings to the character that element of bitter love that a woman scorned has for the man she still has feelings for despite being abandoned.

What this all boils down to is that "Inescapable" doesn't quite come together to be the gripping, thinking man's take on "Taken" which it appears to be trying to be. Maybe it is the fact that the set up has similarities to "Taken" that it is unable to escape similar expectations and those inevitable comparisons.


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