“No Escape” is a well-paced, engaging thriller. The shocking ending and end-sequence video montage, however, raise serious questions about the credibility of the premise of the film.

The movie begins on an airplane where Cole (Keegan Allen) emerges from a restroom to engage his fans on his cell phone. He is the very successful vlogging host of “Escape Real Life” (ERL), which is about to celebrate its ten-year anniversary. This conveniently sets up a video montage of Cole from childhood learning to record every aspect of his life. In recent years, Cole has tried to take his viewers to the most incredible locations and encouraged his fans to scare him by suggesting frightening things that he should try.

Now his friends, apparently as wealthy as he is, have arranged for this special trip and are taking him to Moscow. We soon learn from Dash (George Jenko) that Cole is being treated to a super-scary escape room custom-made for him by the richest and most connected Russian, Alexei (Ronen Rubinstein). You can only do the escape room once. Cole is stoked as this will be live streamed on ERL only to his subscribers.

The entourage arrive at the airport. These include Cole’s girlfriend Erin (Holland Roden, Teen Wolf); Sam (Siya), who bombed out of the X Games this year; and Cole’s long-time best friend Thomas (Denzel Whitaker). Alexei takes them to their fancy hotel.

That night, as they are clubbing, two Russians harass Erin. When Cole tries to intervene, he is assaulted. Alexei pulls a knife and then one of the aggressors pulls a gun. Alexei’s bodyguards fortunately put a stop to all of this, but not before Cole and his group are threatened with future harm.

The evening of the escape room it is revealed to be an old Bolshevik prison. The five of them are blindfolded and led into separate chambers. Cole is in one with a dead body which he disembowels to find a key in the stomach to escape his room. As he encounters each of his friends, the peril seems to increase. Cole and the others solve all of the problems but not before Erin nearly drowns in a closed water chamber.

They go back to the lobby to find a ransacked area with blood on the wall. Cole has to break a lock to get them out. When they emerge, they see dead bodies as well as the thugs from the nightclub who promptly take them to another location.

Cole has the sack on his head removed to discover that he is in a room by a bloody table full of tools and surgical implements. A mean Russian, Andrei (Pasha Lynchnikoff), reveals that he is being paid to do a snuff video and that Americans rate highly as victims. Cole is taken to another room in what appears to be a prison. Will Cole and his friends escape? Is this still part of the escape room or is this real?

Erin at one point wonders if Cole is able to differentiate his real life from his virtual one. This is one of the themes of the movie that is paralleled by the escape room and prison settings. What is real and what isn’t? Is the virtual world changing the definition of what counts as reality? The director’s notes indicate that he wonders if we are adjusting our actions to suit this virtual environment. In Cole’s case, the answer is debatable.

Another theme that arises is the nature of friendship and trust. As examples, Cole discovers that Dash did not know Alexei as well as Cole was led to believe. Alexei said that no matter what occurred, Cole would be safe; is this true in the prison?

When Cole tells Andrei that they are Americans and Andrei indicates that this raises their values as victims, we see the tables turned on the wealthy and privileged. Has Cole’s fame enabled him to “escape real life” or is he living an illusion?

The film does a good job incorporating the look of watching through a cell phone. When this occurs, we get to see the comments of Cole’s viewers on the left and over his picture stream hearts and thumbs-up of varying sizes.

Parallel to this is the feed we see in the prison’s video. Here we see comments in Russian, which of course most English-speakers cannot translate. Since these “subscribers” are supposedly waiting for people to be tortured and killed, it heightens the terror.

A key point that also succeeds in adding to the tension is the use of the Russian language in the prison. This is provided without subtitles so you never know what is being said, which is quite disorienting. At times it almost sounded like creepy backward-masked English.

The publicity materials reveal that the producers, who also worked on “Escape Room”, had a much higher budget on this picture and it shows. The production values are uniformly high.

Jason Goodell’s cinematography is top-notch. I particularly appreciated the clarity of his low-lighted scenes in the escape room and prison. Watching on a laptop, I did not lose any visual acuity in these darker sequences. His establishing shots in Russia are gorgeous.

Production designer Adam Henderson likewise is to be commended for his excellent set design. The escape room and prison contain wonderful details that add to the authenticity. I loved the hotel rooms that Cole and his friends occupied.

This is not a movie for character development as it is entirely plot-driven. The negative aspect of this is that I did not establish a bond with the characters. So their fates meant less to me than if they had been fully developed. On the plus side, Keegan Allen does a good job showing fear and emotional exhaustion.

I did find it somewhat perplexing that Cole did not have a business entourage with him as well as his friends. I do not know much about the vlogging world, but it seems to me that someone as successful as Cole would have a manager and assistants along for the ride.

The film is paced very well and keeps you guessing in each scene. I was never bored, and I watched the screener twice. The ending is not unfortunate because it is shocking, but because it casts doubts on the entire premise of the film. Combined with an unnecessary end-sequence video montage, these are an unfortunate occurrence in what is otherwise a well-done production.

Three and a half out of five stars

A social media star travels with his friends to Moscow to capture new content for his successful VLOG. Always pushing the limits and catering to a growing audience, he and his friends enter a cold world of mystery, excess and danger. As the line between real life and social media is blurred, the group must fight to escape, and survive.

Starring: Keegan Allen, Holland Roden, Denzel Whitaker, Ronen Rubinstein, Pasha Lychnikoff, George Janko, Siya
Written and directed by: Will Wernick