De La Salle University Dasmarias

College of Liberal Arts and Communication

Social Sciences Department

Prelim Main Task

REACTION PAPER: NO ESCAPE

Mr. Jose Aims Rocina

Bautista, Marnee F.

Cerrero, Jian Claudette

Lopez, Imee Lorraine I.

Mendoza, Christine Joyce S.

Prado, Loren Dorothea N.

Villamor, Maria Aubrey B.

 I. PLOT
The movie plot may base on events which took place in Thailand in 2006 known as Thai
coup dtat take place on Tue. 19 Sept. 2006, however, there was no border on Thailand to
Vietnam only Cambodia to Vietnam, it means the movie was taken place in Cambodia while
basing the whole events to Thai coup dtat, overall it was a fiction action movie depicting the
policy of Thailand which allowed first world countries to exploit resources of third world countries.
The plot of the movie started in an unnamed city in Southeast Asia with a culture based on
Thailand, the Prime Minister closes a deal with a representative of Cardiff, a corporation
specializing in water systems, after the deal was done and the representatives leaves, a group of
armed rebels initiate a coup dtat and assassinating the Prime Minister, while this event take
place, earlier, Engineer Jack Dwyer, new employee of Cardiff corporation is flying to the country
with his wife Annie and their two daughters Lucy and Briegel also known as "Breeze", After landing
they met a Briton named Hammond, who offer them a ride with him and his friend Kenny Rogers
also known as Kenny, Destination Imperial Lotus hotel, where most of the foreigners are staying,
after reaching the hotel, Jack learns that the phone lines, television, and the internet are all down
not only in the hotel but the whole city, he saw Hammond his earlier companion having fun in the
bar, he joins and sit, have chat with Hammond and his friend Kenny. The next morning, Jack goes
out to buy a newspaper, and coincidentally find himself being sandwich in a confrontation between
a force of militant rebel group and a force of riot police which both forces are all armed to the teeth
and ready for confrontation, as two forces clash violently, Jack makes his escape to streets that
serve as a maze, till he reaches his destination the hotel to reach his family. The protesters gain
the upper hand and begin murdering the police, seeing all of this Jack runs back to the hotel and
witnesses the rebels executing a foreigner at the entrance of the hotel, after witnessing such
commotion Jack has been spotted by the rebel group forcing Jack to desperately climb the fire
escape and enter the hotel through a window. The rebels break through the main hotel entrance
and begin indiscriminately slaughtering the staff and guests, and mostly targeting the guest of the
hotel which mostly consists of foreigners, Jack makes it back to his family's room in panic and
covered by sweat and dirt began explaining the events occurring outside the hotel and mostly in
the whole city however he spotted Lucy is not in the room and learns that Lucy is swimming in
the pool downstairs, Jack barely gets to Lucy in time before the rebels reach to them. Meanwhile
Annie sees rebels going from room to room killing all the occupants of the room and barely
manages to keep them out of their room, Jack return to their room carrying Lucy in his arms and
proceed to escape to the Fire exit however they encounter the rebels but Hammond saves him
and tells him to get to the roof. The whole family follow the advice of Hammond and join some of
the hotel's guests and staff, who have gathered and blocked the door. On the rooftop, a hotel
tourists warn Jack to back away over the edge of the roof, as the rebels below will take a shot at
whoever they can see. Jack ignoring the warning look over the roof and sees a thousand group
of rebels gathering at the base of the hotel, and realize the rebel has seized most of the city. The
rebel forces are shouting words repeatedly and a French guest understands then interprets what
the rebels are saying as the French guest told the Annie, wife of jack, who could understand
French they are shouting Don't resist. There will be no prisoners because they're going to kill us
anyway.", "Blood for water!. Wanting to know what does it mean Jack questioned an injured hotel
worker, they learn that the rebels are protesting the Western corporations controlling the water
supply and monopolizing it by destroying water businesses of the locals in that country, after that
a helicopter approached the hotel giving a sigh of relief for the people in the rooftop, however
everyone relief turns to horror as they realize it belongs to the rebels, who open fire and killing
mostly all of them, as Jack's family run for cover, the helicopter gets tangled to some wires
resulting it to crash, the rebels break through the blockade in the rooftop and indiscriminately
killing all the people in the rooftop while this is happening Jack and his family jumps onto the roof
of an office building next to the hotel, Jack look back and sees the rebels holding up the banner
from Cardiff with his photo on it, making him realize that the rebel groups consider him as high-
value target.
After such events Jack and his family finding short solace in the building that they jumped
on however Jack saw the commotion on the road seeing tank enters the street and targets the
office building and fires into the building that they are resting on. Jack and his family hide under
some debris and a corpse of an employee as the rebel forces enter and loot the building while at
it the rebel group murder the employees making Jack and his family witnessing everything. The
family remains there until nightfall with a corpse hiding them, Jack leaves the hiding place, and
spotted a looting rebel and forced to kill him, for the sake of not giving their location to the rebel
group. They find a map, take some clothes and disguise themselves as locals, and they plan to
make their way to the American embassy, on a motor vehicle. On the way, they manage to ride
through a crowd of rebels by moving slowly, however, one man notice that they are foreigners but
says nothing upon seeing the two young children riding with him. Upon arriving at the American
embassy, they find it deserted and mostly looted and occupied by the rebel forces, realizing this
Jack and his family started to flee but been spotted by a group of rebels, including the leader who
spotted him at the front of the hotel and the one tagging him as one of the high-value targets from
the hotel. The family takes shelter in a Buddhist shrine, and protected by the old property
caretaker, the rebels followed them and enter the compound, starting to search for any clues
regarding to them, Jack attempts to steal the gun of the rebels, and realizing Jacks intention Annie
comes out from hiding and started to draw attention away from Jack, while Lucy and Breeze hide,
however, their attempts were failed due to the gun being unloaded resulting on Jack, beaten and
restrained, as the rebel leader prepares to rape Annie in front of Jack, Hammond, and Kenny
enters the shrine and kills most of the rebels except for the leader who luckily dodges and started
to escape. The two men escorted Jack and his family to a brothel, which they pass through to
reach their destination the large tower on the roof.
The whole company found short peace and started to eat dinner, Hammond explains that
he and Kenny work for British Intelligence, and he and other like him pave paths or creating
opportunity to people like Jack by making the government of poor countries accepting offers by
corporates that have interest to the resources of some countries and making them be full in debts,
resulting total control of the corporates on the said country, as these deals allowed the corporates
to dominate the government through debt, they angered the people, which led to the anarchic
uprising or coupetat. Hammond explains that their plan is to get to the nearby river, get a boat,
and sail across the border to Vietnam, where they will be given asylum. Before they can enact
their plan, they are attacked by the rebels in the middle of the night across the other tower, the
rebels killed Kenny and wounded Hammond. Hammond sacrifices himself to take out a rebel truck
following them giving time for Jack and his family reach the border to Vietnam. At the riverbank,
Annie hides the kids and let Jack search for a boat after jack found one boat, a fisherman who
owns the boat spotted him and as Jack asks for the boat, the fisherman wanted a trade for Jacks
shoes and his watch. The fisherman hears the rebels approaching, hides Jack beneath a boat,
however, the rebel groups with its leader who escaped earlier comes back with another group
successfully found Jack and captured him and prepares to execute him, Lucy witnessing this
leaves her hiding place and assaulted the leader whose shot missed and hits Jack's shoulder.
The leader then catches Lucy, puts a gun in her hand and one to her head and ordered her to kill
Jack. She refuses, but Jack encourages her to shoot him in exchange to save her before Lucy
can make a choice, Annie intervenes and hitting the leader to the head and continuously hitting
him till the leader dies while in the center of commotion Jack grabs the leaders gun and kills the
remaining rebels.
The family gets into the boat and paddle downriver, however, they are spotted by a group
of rebels, but Jack and Annie keeps on paddling desperately rushing to the border, although the
Vietnamese border patrol warns the family not to enter Vietnam and they will shoot if they continue
such action, they take no response and only continue to warn the family and as soon as the boat
crosses at the border marker, the border patrol warn the rebels against attacking the family as
they are now in Vietnamese waters and the boat is considered as a property of the Vietnamese
Government, if the rebels shoot, they will consider it as an act of war, witnessing this, the family
started to hug each other consoling and enjoying the relief that they survive such tribulation.
II. RELEVANCE
Political System Theory relies stresses the way political system respond to the demands
that arise from the environment such as the public opinion, interest groups and pressure groups.
The movie exhibited the relationship of the American corporation owning the Cardiff water
company in an unknown South East Asian city through labor, capital, and investment. The prime
minister was killed by the rebels for the reason that he upheld the capitalist way of thinking
through making trade deals with Cardiff Company, accepting imperialism through trade
domination by allowing companies to own the government through debt and exploitation of their
fellow South East Asians through labor practices. In relation to public policy making it is important
that every leader must consider the public opinion and the interests of the people before deciding
on something. Thus it is important to consider the welfare of the people and what the public
thinks about the set of issues that need to be addressed. We can see that their government lacks
of policy analysis due to the case that they didn't assess well the problem and prepared for the
dilemma that it might bring to the country. The cultural context and political culture is well applied
to the film since it involves the values, beliefs and attitudes. The rebels utilize violence to
overthrow the government, to combat foreign corporations, and to secure their national interests
by killing foreign investors and their co workers, looting business establishment, and destroying
other major institutions that supported capitalists and government. It is against on the trust,
confidence in government, political process, freedom to explore resources and equality in the
society.
Generally, it damages the society because it can be considered as the policy output which
is supposedly will help their economic context but its policy outcome turns out that the people
were against it because it lacks of efficiency, effectiveness, equity and political feasibility.
Personally speaking, all another aspect of political science can be applied aside from public
policy. Political philosophy, ideologies, and theories are also presented. The violent uprising was
orchestrated by the anarchists and communists because they believed that the government has
betrayed the people through making trade deals with the US, the people were unjustly exploited
that resulted in poverty and embrace western thoughts that are not suitable to their own culture.
Comparative Politics is also present in the film the unknown country is in the third wave
of democratization. In the third wave democratization, there are tendencies for the people to lean
back from authoritarianism because they believe that democracy will lead into a weak state. The
rebels did the uprising because they are not satisfied and contented in the new democratic order
for they believe that the people will benefit from it will be the elites, corporation, and upper class
while the masses will stay poor and marginalized.
III. REACTION
 According to Loren Dorothea N. Prado, the movie No Escape gives me so much
anxiety, every scene in the movie is so intense that it left me shouting, the movie really got me.
Watching the movie made feel that anywhere in the world could be unsafe and dangerous. It
made me realize that no country is immune from a rebellion attack, and no person is immune
from becoming a victim of an attack. But apparently, as per the movie, the reason for rebellion
outbreak in seems unrealistic, the movie just made Asian countries look dangerous to go to or
to travel to, and encouraged fears going to an Asian country. The movie indeed showed racial
discrimination for Asian countries. In this movie, it is clearly shown that America is making its
way to dominate the country, just by having the U.S. water company in that Asian country in the
movie just proved it. I believe that Americas financial ties between Asia has its own agenda,
agenda that they are to benefit, so to promote their self-vested interest. I am assuming that the
reason behind the massive violent uprising in the movie is because of Americas Domination in
their country, the presence of U.S. water company to be exact. It is good to take actions and
make actions to stop American domination in a country, but the actions used by the citizens of
the Asian country in the movie is madly wrong and should not be taken into consideration.

According to Imee Lorraine I. Lopez, A lot of critique says that No Escape was a living
proof of racism and xenophobic story. With racial tension and a lot of prejudice cases happening
around the world, this movie is regarded as significant worth on certain matters. The story
focuses on an American family caught up in an anti-foreigner uprising somewhere in an Asian
country and have to escape before they get executed by a bunch of rebels. It was purely an
internal struggle between different factions which makes the situation even worse.

The movie introduces us to the ugly and hard-hitting truth behind racism against Asian
and overpowering foreign domination. After watching No Escape, I felt disappointed on how
they delineate the difficulty and struggle encountered by the characters. Well the idea is
supposed to be that the violent natives are persecuting the water company employees, and the
reason why the people are so angry of course is never explained. To me, the nerve-shredding
terror brought upon by the story is unrealistic and pointless. It makes Asian countries especially
that particular location a scary place to go. Although it shows significant features of what really
happens in a violent uprising, it would be a nice move and will give justice if the movie
elaborates the reason behind the massive violent uprising.

No Escape allowed the viewers to look at the complexities of an international judgment

through the growing gap between America and Asian countries. We could see how things as
dominant social and cultural differences can lead to a breakdown of two nations. It would be a
good if the movie show why the American government has not taken any action to address the
issue. Regardless of the circumstances, Im relieved on the last scene where they were able to
reach the Vietnamese border patrol and finally escape that place.

According to Christine Mendoza, The movie No Escape gave me a lot of chills. It was
horrific, especially when you situated yourself with those character. No Escape shows
xenophobic and a lot of killings. It is amid escalating political crisis that lead to the countrys
military insurrection, causes a lot of foreigners death. It is not something that will reach you
emotionally and touch your soul, its actually pretty mindless, heartless entertainment that
will probably make you really, really want to take a shower. Its that kind of bad, ugly movie,
and it would be hard to find a movie that felt more xenophobic this year, which makes me
wonder how this made it to theaters in this era of global movie releases. Envision a huge
number of unknown, faceless, nationality-less Asian performers swarming the lanes like the
quick running zombies in World War Z or 28 Days Later. Yes, there's a political defense
given for these scenes (scarcely), and at to start with, it appears like the "guiltless" Owen
Wilson character is simply amidst a political clash amongst radicals and government. Be
that as it may, very quickly, the motion picture turns out to be simply a ludicrous Asians
versus Guiltless White People motion picture, and that is really gross and hard stuff to
recuperate from in any filmsignificantly harder when it scarcely has any characters or plot
to stick to.

No Escape outlines itself as reasonable, nearly swaying its finger to state, who knows?
This could happen, yet it has no real association with reality no "in view of" or "enlivened by [real
event]" that could attempt to clarify away its racial lack of care. They haven't made an anecdotal
nation; they actually say "welcome to Asia," yet then they do get particular and make it clear that
they could reference Cambodia, Laos, or Thailand (where it was shot), so I don't comprehend
what they're doing with this summed up nation in Asia.

I've heard this motion picture called idealism and that individuals calling it xenophobic or
bigot are making too enormous an arrangement, however you'd truly need to bring your
cerebrum levels entirely low to get dreamer delight out of this. For one, there's a ton of blow-
back, and a considerable measure of that inadvertent blow-back includes individuals getting
keep running over by tanks, shot in the head, and the executive's most loved symbolism:
hacked to death with a blade or hatchet. Likewise, I can't state how unsettling it truly is to watch
youngsters this alarmed in a film this genuine, and the main individual who merits "like Liam
Neeson in Taken" examinations is Pierce Bronsan, who's scarcely even in the motion picture.

The movie has featured the possible anarchy and lawlessness that can happen
anywhere. This movie is a very realistic film which can probably be a lesson to viewers.

According to Maria Aubrey B. Villamor,

According to Marnee F. Bautista,

According to Jian Claudette Cerrero,

IV. CONCLUSION
 The Movie itself was an empowering example of thorough application of policy and
powers of the government, how multinational corporates control and dominates and influence
the policy making cycle of third world and fourth world countries, as the movies show an example
of policy of government that somehow cause chaos or tyranny in Thailand. It also depicts the
utilizing capability of the economic strength of Corporations to affect the decision making of every
leaders of government with the goal of enticing the countries need for development, and to
accept such deals to enhance the current situation of the country. Also, it is necessary that the
government of a country must take pre caution measures especially when deciding in entering
into a treaty or agreement. The must also publicized it will affect the lives of many people. This
is important specially to prevent rebels and protests uprisings that later on will cause an all-out
war degrading and damaging the peace and stability of the state. I also come up to the point that
the government must enhance the military and provide total security to protect those innocent
people from being beaten up and killed by the rebels because it Is really a wrong way of asking
for some reform that it resulted up to disorganization of the society.
The movie created ideas on the dominance of foreign influence, especially when it comes,
to more realistic side of the truth, the war of resources, as powerful countries wanting to have
more accessibility to other countries resources, in order to satisfy their insufficient resources and
allocate it in their own countries interest, which could result in trampling other countries
government, culture, and people, however such actions can be countered not by the government
but the power of the people itself, being fully aware, the masses will resort to sheer violence and
united front of action. The movie portrayed a full-scale uprising resulting in an anarchic state of
revolution, breaking the form of the government and creating a lawless society, the movie caught
the essence of the idea of opposition to the people or the so-called pure revolution, contending
to the oppressive nature of its dominators, resorting to coup detat, birthing to a new awareness
that the people have common enemies and that is the foreign influence and its government.
The movie expressively show the result of imperialist oppressiveness, through the view
of the protagonist Jack, making him and his family witness such ordeal and experiencing it first
hand, and realizing that their government corporations created such events, out of necessity in
resources, in overall view the movie itself was a study material on understanding how important
resources are, and understanding the economic, social and political issues affecting the result of
the exploitation not for the means of the people but for the means of the higher echelons, one of
its important points is the reaction of the people, in response to foreign influence wanting to
dominate the government and how other powerful entities wanting to dominate states
government out of interest.