Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Bang, boom, bam. That's about the size of things in No Escape, a movie banking on its admittedly first-rate action drowning out its political tone-deafness.

Name : Stephen Dalton / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Dowdle delivers enough adrenalized tension to maintain his track record of profitable, populist pulp.

Name : Walter V. Addiego / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
Strict plausibility isn't necessary in these movies, but you can't just throw it out the window, and "No Escape" shows why.

Name : Kevin P. Sullivan / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Even ignoring the racism-which is pretty much impossible-No Escape is a cliche-ridden, artless relic.

Name : Daniel M. Gold / Alias : New York Times
Among the most terrifying scenes is an early shot of Mr. Brosnan in the hotel bar, shouting lyrics to a Huey Lewis tune. Oh, the horror.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
If you've really been wanting to see endless shots of Owen Wilson running, sometimes while carrying a medium-sized child, the thriller "No Escape" might be just for you.

Name : Julia Cooper / Alias : Globe and Mail
Whatever seeds of social justice and emotional nuance No Escape may be attempting to sow are undercut by the film's melodramatic valorization of family values.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
Dowdle sticks closely to the family's perspective, for better and for worse; though fairly effective at conveying their terror, he fails to establish any sort of social or political context for the story.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
No Escape is an outlandish, sometimes brutally violent, exploitative, fast-paced white-knuckler featuring your classic American everyman who suddenly develops action-hero skills when his family is placed in danger.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
Writer-director John Eric Dowdle makes the street action propulsive, bewildering and terrifyingly real, and things are just getting warmed up.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
No Escape is pretty trashy, but it held my attention, which is more than I can say for most of the summer fodder.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Every Asian character is either a ruthless murderer or anonymous collateral damage. A lot of locals have to die, the film suggests, in order for one white family to survive.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
This isn't lightweight, fanciful entertainment; it's tense, white-knuckle material.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
I won't make a case for No Escape being a good film; the first half is pretty good and the second half ranges from pretty bad to truly awful.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
This movie really moves. But a fleet of tanks couldn't help the brothers Dowdle push past the plot holes in the screwiest mix of suspense and stereotypes since Michael Bay was a pup

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Despite its illegible chase scenes, awkward slow-motion shots, and fumbling attempts at political commentary, No Escape manages to be intermittently interesting, thanks to an off-beat supporting turn from Pierce Brosnan.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
A thoroughly ugly film for an audience that doesn't care who's shooting whom.

Name : Jake Coyle / Alias : Associated Press
Taut, well-made and entirely dubious.

Name : Michael Granberry / Alias : Dallas Morning News
A nearly two-hour thrill ride that, tired cliche that it is, really does keep you on the edge of your seat.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Between the script and the superior editing by Elliot Greenberg, there's an enormous amount of tension and thrills to be found here; unfortunately, they're all in the service of a movie that's reprehensible to the core.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
In terms of pure popcorn escapism, No Escape delivers from the get-go, cutting to the chase without belabouring the character details.

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
No Escape is a tense but utterly predictable exercise in Western xenophobic paranoia and guilt.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
A technically accomplished, morally rank slab of cultural exploitation .

Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Supersize your popcorn, check your logic at the door and settle in for a pretty good ride.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
There's no fleeing the clunkiness in "No Escape."

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
A taut thriller about an American family touching down in an unnamed country just as a violent coup erupts, No Escape goes about its gut-churning business by playing (and preying) on our worst xenophobic tendencies.

Name : Noel Murray / Alias : AV Club
While Kidnapped doesn't add anything substantially new to the tradition, Vivas hits his marks with ruthless efficiency.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
Swedish director Daniel Alfredson pushes the caper button too many times. More sly wit would have helped things come to a head.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Fairly enjoyable and credit is due to its sterling cast, led by Anthony Hopkins as Heineken .

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
The real-life kidnapping had all the elements of a thriller, so how it became such a mild-mannered movie is anybody's guess.

Name : Nick Pinkerton / Alias : Village Voice
As most of Kidnapped is devoted to watching people in extreme duress, leaving room for little else, it follows that the film exists solely to be "intense."

Name : William Goss / Alias : Film.com
Survival horror has rarely been approached so sparingly and yet, for all there is to admire. the initial sense of potential suspense gives way to the creeping contempt of familiarity.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
Heineken may be weighed down by the predictable reality of actual events. Or it just may be lacking in electricity and depth. Either way, it's lacking.

Name : Aaron Hillis / Alias : Village Voice
Glossy, lifelessly paced .

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
The true story of Freddy Heineken's kidnapping is fascinating, but "Kidnapping Mr. Heineken" is a disappointingly superficial film in which neither the kidnappers nor their captives are particularly interesting.

Name : David Rooney / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Gripping but grueling, this Spanish debut feature scores on technical prowess but its nihilistic viciousness is hard to take.

Name : Keith Uhlich / Alias : AV Club
Much like the lager that gives the film its name, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken is bland on the palate and best pissed away.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
Anthony Hopkins plays the king of the hops, and he is excellent. So is the rest of the movie, a sober, no-frills account about the highest ransom ever collected up to that time-$10 million and counting.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Despite its true-events pedigree, "Kidnapping Mr. Heineken" is woefully captive to B-movie crime saga tropes.

Name : Trevor Johnston / Alias : Time Out
One capably staged chase sequence apart, it's not one to set the pulse racing.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
Anthony Hopkins and a cast of erstwhile next-big-things go slumming in Daniel Alfredson's listless, fact-based kidnapping caper.

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
Starting as a coldly realistic thriller, this film eventually loses its bearings as the director Miguel Angel Vivas succumbs to a fit of nihilism, transforming "Kidnapped" into gruesome tit-for-tat torture porn.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
In just a few scenes, Hopkins conjures up some sorely needed fizz. But the low-key vibe of the film doesn't match the high-stakes audacity of the crime.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
The utter lack of surprises and waste of a first-rate cast - Anthony Hopkins as Alfred "Freddy" Heineken; Jim Sturgess and Sam Worthington as kidnappers - make for a tremendous letdown.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
The sole object lesson in the true-crime drama "Kidnapping Mr. Heineken" is that not every crime deserves its own movie.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Some kind of napping for sure.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
In 1983, five knuckleheads decided to strike it rich by kidnapping beer magnate Freddy Heineken. "Kidnapping Mr. Heineken" is a dull, trite thriller about their crime and undoing.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
My eyes never left the screen and my attention never wandered; in a restricted, technical sense of the term, "Kidnapped" is a masterpiece.

Name : Geoff Pevere / Alias : Globe and Mail
Not only is Hopkins's Freddy incomparably more charismatic than any of his captors, he's the only one who, weirdly enough, seems to be enjoying the ordeal. But maybe that's simply a matter of pay scale.