Inescapable: Missing Inaction

The “missing person” action flick has become something of a Hollywood staple, and no matter how predictable the outcome, you have to admit they’re usually pretty good at keeping you on edge. The examples are countless, and Hollywood has been good at delivering some action-packed suspenseful stories about kidnapped offspring: the Liam Neeson Taken movies (Taken 2 is in the works), Ben Affleck’s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone (2007) or Ron Howard’s Ransom (1996), starring Mel Gibson, just to name a few. These films all struck the parental chord inside us (even if we’re not parents), but they’re also all intricately scripted, and often visually arresting.

Canadian Ruba Nadda (the force behind the sweet and critically acclaimed Cairo Time) wrote and directed Inescapable, a story about a father, Adib (Alexander Siddig), who goes to Damascus to search for his missing daughter Muna (Jay Anstey), a photographer. Adib’s past as a secret police agent forced him to leave Syria many years ago, so when his daughter goes missing (for a reason as cliché as “I just wanted to see where you were from because you never talk about it”), he is obliged to confront his “inescapable” past and go back to find her. Adib is aided by his old-time flame Fatima (Marisa Tomei) and Canadian embassy official Paul (Joshua Jackson), who (dramatic drum roll) knows more about Muna than he initially pretends to.

Inescapable is, unfortunately, filled with flaws, and it feels very hastily made and not well thought out. Siddig and Tomei are flexible actors to begin with (Tomei is actually a revelation with an Arabic accent and gives the best performance in the film), but even they can’t save a script filled with holes. For one thing, the movie jumps right into Muna’s missing case. There is no back story on how they found out she was missing, and that is already a bit of a throw-off, since no emotional engagement is made with her.

Secondly, we find out that Adib was engaged to Fatima once upon a time; when he fled to Toronto he never wrote to her or called her, and now of all a sudden he just gives her a ring to tell her he needs her help. That’s just cold. And the role of Jackson’s Canadian official is minimal; I will not reveal it because it would be a spoiler, and not a good one at that. Also, the fact that in Syria everyone speaks English instead of Arabic is kind of, well, unrealistic.

Ultimately, Inescapable is more like an extended episode of CSI than a film. It relies solely on our sympathy with a father whose only mission is to save his daughter, but that alone is not enough to make a good movie. Nadda remains a promising young director, so hopefully she will be able to redeem herself. ■

Inescapable opens Sept. 21

Radina Papukchieva blogs at The Café Phenomenon. @Papukchieva on Twitter.