Customer Reviews

No Way Out

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If only the ending could be just a tad different, this would be twice as popular as it ever got. The topnotch, passionately made film largely goes unsung, a bit like "The Siege," only because it threw away all the riveting plot twists when it reached its ho-hum finale (some may call it a great final twist).

Quibbles aside, this fast paced nail-biter may be one of the quickest 2 hours of cinema ever filmed. Costner plays a Navy commander assigned to a high level post in the DOD, where he, and the Secretary of Defense become embroiled in a murder/scandal. The bulk of the film chronicles the Departments Under Secretary's attempts to quash the problem. A high level Russian mole in the U.S. government is being pursued throughout the film. The chase keeps narrowing down more and more drawing the government officials closer and closer to the culprit. The tension became almost unbearable as the mole was about to be trapped.

Costner, for a change, is really convincing in his role, the tight dialog helping him immeasurably. Sean Young actually smiles in this movie and looks twice as good as all her other newer movies put together. Gene Hackman has the usual commanding screen presence.

All in all, a fabulous politically charged thriller you ought not to miss!

After so long this movie has been out-of-print, I got this DVD the moment it came out in late April. No Way Out is simply one of the best Kevin Costner movies I've ever seen. I believe this was where he scored his first break as a talented action star with his sexy and heart throb good looks. The cover up story is very nerve racking that you can really feel the suspense around it. The movie runs for almost 2 hours and it takes you around the Washington DC area & the Pentagon and is worth watching over & over again. The chronology of episodes really intensifies the viewers until the whole cover up explodes at the climax. The movie also ignites with passion, as Kevin Costner fell for the Secretary of Foreign Affair's mistress played by Sean Young. Of course, Gene Hackman, one of the all time best actors around, also played a good role as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Sex & politics is just a hot topic of our times and in the coming November 2000 elections especially when loyalty and integrity and devotion to your job & countrymen come into play. That's what this movie stirs some criticisms but not this extreme. It kind of reminds us of the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal. If you've seen Murder at 1600, you'll gonna like this one. The DVD is dual featured in standard & widescreen versions, theatrical trailer and a special "the making of" track. It is worth owning it.

Having lived around the outskirts of Washington, D.C. myself, it's always a nice treat to watch a film that literally takes place right where I have stood, at one time or another. It's just very fun to know that a famous movie was shot where you once walked. (Although I now regret visiting the set of "101 Dalmations" in London--that's one story I don't often tell people with a smile on my face.)

At the beginning of "No Way Out," we get to see Washington from above as the camera glides through the air, swerving and going around in circles, until we land inside a small interrogation room housing a convicted murderer (Kevin Costner), who is in fact innocent and has been framed. "When's he coming out?" he asks as he walks over to a one-way mirror and looks through the glass. Right as we start to think, "Whom is he talking to?" (Or "Does he mean Hackman?" if you've read anything about the film), we fall backwards in time and land in the same place some number of months earlier.

"No Way Out" is a government thriller about an officer wrongly accused of murder--when the Secretary of State himself is the culprit trying to avoid a scandal by launching a top-secret cover-up. Costner is the officer, and Gene Hackman is the Secretary of State. After meeting a beautiful young woman (Sean Young) at a party, Costner takes her into a limo and they have a quickie--before they even know each other's names.

What's this got to do with anything? Why is my review so choppy and linear-challenged? We'll get there.

The relationship between the two turns into a big romance until Costner is sent out to sea, where he saves a sailor from falling overboard and is praised in all the papers--where his girlfriend back home sees his face and is reminded of him. (Now she's the mistress of Hackman, by the way--that complicates matters quite a bit.)

When he arrives back home, they go on a romantic getaway--but Hackman finds out and accidentally murders the girl while trying to get her to tell him the name of her lover. Ready to turn himself in, Hackman is persuaded by his gay friend to cover everything up and blame someone else. The gay man even goes and gets rid of the evidence himself--with pride, I might add. (It's like Mr. Burns and Smithers from "The Simpsons"--the latter loves the former, but the former is too powerful and naive to ever notice.)

The clever twist in "No Way Out" is that Costner knows Hackman killed Young, but Hackman doesn't know that he knows that. (Get it?) As he runs around the Pentagon and other government establishments, the evidence starts to pile up against him--the negative off the back of a Polaroid camera, a few eyewitnesses who claim they saw a man outside Young's apartment the night of her murder, etc.

The great thing about "No Way Out," and another factor that separates it from the rest of its kind, is something that's hard to explain to someone who hasn't seen the film. Essentially, no one knows who killed the girl--and Costner isn't placed under arrest straight away because no one has uncovered any evidence pointing towards him. As the negative off the back of the Polaroid is scanned through a computer and painstakingly altered to reveal the man's face on the photo, Costner runs around trying to eliminate evidence before anyone finds out. The photo will eventually reveal his own face, yes, but he has a number of hours until then to find the true evidence that convicts Hackman.

This is a smart thriller with a few pleasant twists, particularly the very end. It's not a great movie by any means, but it's well-acted and solidly directed by Roger Donaldson, who also made last year's "The Recruit" with Al Pacino and Colin Farrell. The guy obviously likes government thrillers. This one is a lot more plausible than "The Recruit," too.

This is one of the benchmark for the movies based on political drama and corruption in government departments. The story is about a secretary in Pentagon, and his attempts to cover-up the accidental killing of his mistress. The corrupt officers will not stop at anything to save the secretary from loosing his position. The defence secretary put Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner) in charge of the murder investigation and later uses him for the cover up by falsely accusing him of a being a KGB spy. The world around Farrell changes, as the people he was supposed to trust turns out to be corrupt and partners with the defence secretary. Go for this movie if you like the conspiracy and political thriller because till date very few movies are made up to this mark.

My review title says it all. If you like suspense movies, you will love this one. I'm not a Kevin Costner fan, I can take him or leave him, but this movie stands on it's own for it's plot and suspense. Trust me, this one will keep you guessing until the end. The only down side is, like most great suspense movies, it's not as exhilarating the second time, but still nice to watch.

Back in the beginning of his cinema career, Kevin Costner made intelligent choices about the films he made, and NO WAY OUT -- to this day -- stands as perhaps his finest performance yet. This clever whodunnit very sparingly drops clues along the way for the most astute viewer, but, if you're watching closely, you begin to see things coming about for the Naval Intelligence Officer ... and, if you're really clever, you might guess the ending. A must-see for political thrill-seekers!

Much like 3 Days of the Condor (1976), No Way Out was a well done political thriller with some steamy sex scenes that were easily on par with some of the sex scenes around. It features everything you'd want from a good thriller, a good cast, incl. Kevin Costner & Gene Hackman, some good music, & some good acting moments that keep it an "on the edge of your seat" movie.
It starts out with Tom Farrell (Costner) explaining to some Russian moles what happened to him at the Pentagon. He says that he knew his mission was just to get some info, but the love affair with Susan Atwell (Young) was just a fling, roughly. Atwell & Farrell meet a military banquet honoring the top brass. They leave the party, get into a limo, & have some steamy sex that's beautifully done & expert camerawork as well.
David Brice (Hackman) & his right hand man Scott Pritchard (Patton) are discussing Farrell's feats in the Navy & decide to give him a cushy job in the Pentagon. After a late night get-together & a weekend trip Brice shows up, but Farrell leaves before Brice can see who it is, but Brice was standing in a streetlight. Brice suspects Susan of cheating & accidently kills her by slapping her so hard she falls through a coffee table.
Pritchard then after being told the details decides to come up with a mole called Yuri who killed her & knew about her. They send all of the available info on Susan's life prior to the murder down to a lab at the Pentagon to find out who it was. What they really find is a negative from a Polaroid that proves to be a vital clue for them. Slowly but assuredly Farrell finds out that all of the clues are pointing back to him so he has to wrap up his work there soon. He knows that the hotel's bellhop knows him, as well as the guy who lent him a boat, the picture she took of him, & phone calls she placed/received.
Farrell does a masterful job of evading the spotlight of suspicion all the time by doing things to avoid being in the same area as the search party. At the end, he suspects Pritchard of being the mole, he kills himself after an argument between Farrell & Brice. Brice doesn't know it but a jewel box could be what very well leads to his being nabbed as the killer of Susan Atwell. Farrell meets his Russian spies & decides to flee Washington, DC just as the movie winds up.
The story is really well done & shines in the movie. The camerawork is really good, as is the music, special effects, & the pacing, but the pacing is uneven at spots but generally well done.

Prior to Kevin Costner's rise to movie stardom in films Bull Durham and Field Of Dreams, he played the lead role in the Pentagon suspense thriller No Way Out. With an all-star cast that includes Gene Hackman, Sean Young, and Will Patton, this is an often overlooked film that's 114 minutes of pure entertainment. Following in the footsteps of countless Cold War thrillers, No Way Out is similar to James Bond meets Jack Ryan. If you enjoy throwback films to the days of capitalism versus communism, you'll definitely enjoy this film. Wrought with suspense, No Way Out is one movie that keeps the viewing audience on its toes and never lets up...

When Lt. Cmdr. Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner) is assigned to a post in the Pentagon working directly for Secretary of Defense David Brice (Gene Hackman), he strikes up a relationship at a Washington social gathering with Susan Atwell (Sean Young). Leaving the party together, the two begin a secret love affair that encompasses weekend sailing trips and regular contact. But Farrell is aware that another man is in Atwell's life. What he doesn't know is that the other man is his boss, Secretary Brice.

When Brice and Atwell get into an argument at her Georgetown apartment, it results in her falling from the top of the staircase to her death. Distraught and unable to think, Brice calls his top aide Scott Pritchard (Will Patton). Pritchard clears the crime scene of evidence linking the death to Brice, and convinces the Secretary to deny any involvement in the woman's death. As a scapegoat, Pritchard blames the woman's death on a KGB mole who he claims was trying to sleep with Atwell in order to get information about Secretary Brice's day-to-day affairs.

Placing Farrell in charge of the investigation, a Polaroid negative is found underneath Atwell's bed - a photograph that, once developed, will reveal his relationship with Atwell. Pentagon computer imaging experts are placed in charge of recovering the picture, which bit-by-bit is restored to its original image with each passing minute. Fearful that he will be fingered as the KGB mole and pinned with a murder he did not commit, Farrell must race against the clock to find Atwell's true killer before the newly developed picture exposes him to the world...

Enlisting the aid of his friends, Farrell buys some extra time to investigate the case. But time runs out when Pritchard fingers him as the mole and the Pentagon security detail hems him in... Can Farrell escape with his life? ...or will the true killer go free?

Fast-paced, suspenseful, and exhibiting all the aspects of a classic Soviet-era spy game drama, No Way Out will have you poised on the edge of your seat. Featuring a surprise conclusion that will bring a smile to your face, this is a well-written screenplay performed flawlessly on screen. A war-era thriller that keeps the audience guessing until the end, No Way Out is a definite must-see film...

The DVD Report

When I first watch this movie 12 years ago, I was expecting it as just another sexy flick. But I was totally unprepared to be blown away by the superb plot, intriguing dialogue and "who-can-beat-that" ending. Not to forget the most amazing cast. Will Patton should get an award for his role. Easily one of the best movies I have ever seen.

Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young, and supporting cast all turn in excellent performances in this underrated but very effective political thriller. This is a very good and effective movie dealing with inside Washington politics and intrigue, and international espionage. The plot moves at a breakneck pace, there are few draggy lulls of the type that plague so many movies these days, and the film never fails to capture and retain the viewer's interest. This is a great "beer and chips" film for a Friday evening.

No spoilers here, but just let it be said that as one watches the film, it twists and turns and continues to surprise the viewer. Costner is very effective here, Gene Hackman has his usual presence, and overall, this film solidly succeeds in its goal, which is to entertain. Recommended.