No Way Out (1987)
8/10
Often described as “neo-noir”, No Way Out completed Kevin Costner’s one-two punch in 1987, along with The Untouchables, that catapulted him to Hollywood’s A-list. An adaptation of Kenneth Fearing’s book The Big Clock, directed by Roger Donaldson and written by Robert Garland, the movie includes many conventions of film noir: a crime investigation involving murder and adultery; flawed, morally questionable characters; a narrative told in flashback; and a pessimistic worldview that views everyone as inherently corrupt. Despite some dated, cheesy elements, No Way Out is a riveting thriller buoyed by excellent lead performances from Costner and Gene Hackman and a memorable twist ending.
The film opens with naval intelligence officer Lt.-Cmdr. Tom Farrell (Costner) under interrogation, asked how he crossed paths with Secretary of Defense David Brice (Hackman). Farrell’s uniform is stained with blood, though we don’t know whose. He describes how he met Brice through the latter’s general counsel Sean Pritchard (Will Patton) at the presidential inaugural ball in Washington. At the same ball he met Susan Atwell (Sean Young), Brice’s mistress, and began an affair with her. When Brice suspects Atwell of seeing another man and inadvertently kills her, Farrell is at risk of becoming the chief suspect.
Early scenes are overwhelmingly ’80s, starting with Maurice Jarre’s Scarface-reminiscent synth score and a lengthy makeout/sex scene in the back of a limo set to Paul Anka’s title track, which feels adjacent to contemporary MTV in the vein of Miami Vice or Rocky IV. But the film draws us in with its characters navigating thorny situations, both personal and political. Young is a classic femme fatale and gets some of the best lines, as when Atwell passes through a metal detector at the inaugural ball: “Thank God it’s not a bullshit detector or none of us would get in.” She asks Farrell if he’s another one of “these hypocrites, all posh and shiny getting ready for four more years of ramming it to the rest of us.” When he accuses her of being cynical, she responds, “Adequate to the occasion.”
We expect Brice to be the main villain. But that title really goes to Pritchard, who is infatuated with his boss and goes above and beyond to cover up Brice’s involvement in his mistress’s death. Pritchard scrubs the crime scene of evidence and enacts a plan to portray a long-rumoured KGB agent within the Pentagon, codenamed “Yuri”, as Atwell’s lover and killer. Patton is fun to watch, though the film traffics in old-school Hollywood homophobia in which being LGBTQ+ signals that a character is villainous, associating non-conformity in gender roles or sexual orientation with moral depravity. CIA director Marshall (Fred Thompson) dismisses an agent’s suggestion that Atwell was Pritchard’s mistress, noting that the latter is “a homosexual”.
After he kills Atwell, Brice goes to Pritchard and announces his plan to turn himself in to police. Pritchard advises him not to and leads the effort to pin the blame for Atwell’s death on “Yuri”. Given his status as a cynical wheeler-and-dealer in Washington and his extramarital affair, Brice’s initial response comes as a surprise. How often do politicians accept responsibility for anything? For the rest of the film, Hackman portrays anguish and anxiety, while Pritchard is hyper-focused on how to absolve his boss. This feels like an easy way out for the filmmakers to make the adulterous secretary of defense, who literally killed his mistress, less villainous than his gay general counsel. But you could argue Pritchard’s actions are representative less of homophobia than of the accurate view that the halls of power are full of amoral ghouls willing to do anything that will advance their careers.
One refreshing aspect of No Way Out is its willingness to acknowledge atrocities of U.S. imperialism, specifically its support for right-wing death squads in Latin America. Noticing the presence of two thuggish-looking men, Farrell confirms from Pritchard that they are former Special Forces members who participated in the killing of left-wing political opponents, similar to the murderous right-wing Contras that the Reagan administration supported in Nicaragua.
Farrell: Who are these goons?
Pritchard: They're associated with Special Forces.
Farrell: Why? I don't understand what that means. What does that mean, “associated”?
Pritchard: That means exactly what I said. They were formerly in Special Forces and now they are associated…
Farrell: [to Goon 1] Where? Honduras? El Salvador?
[Goon 1 nods yes]
Pritchard: Somewhere down there.
Farrell: [to Goon 1] Were you with the death squads? [to Pritchard] What? They were with the death squads there.
Pritchard: It's possible.
Farrell: In other words, then they're assassins!
A major Hollywood film invoking Washington’s support for Latin American death squads and making it a significant plot plot feels almost unthinkable in today’s blockbuster environment. Even one of Marvel’s best films, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which the studio marketed as a 1970s-style “political thriller”, pulled its punches by ascribing crimes of U.S. imperialism to a secret Nazi-adjacent organization, Hydra, that had infiltrated the government decades ago. Credit to No Way Out for recognizing Washington’s moral rot as an innate feature of the system, rather than the result of infiltration by nefarious external forces.
In its third act, No Way Out delivers solid action sequences and even a car chase, ratcheting up tension to fuel the viewer’s adrenaline. The twist ending is unexpected, yet it ties up loose ends and is one of those ingenious twists that makes you reconsider everything you just watched, further underscoring the moral ambiguity of the characters. No Way Out is an entertaining, pulpy thriller that updates noir conventions for the 1980s and serves as a superior example of the kind of mid-budget, “just-a-movie” movie Hollywood doesn’t really make anymore.