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 : Martin Tsai / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A cri de coeur on the samurai flicks of a bygone era, "Uzumasa Limelight" unfolds understatedly and movingly like something from Clint Eastwood at the top of his game.

Name : Jeannette Catsoulis / Alias : New York Times
Directing with an old-fashioned tenderness toward his unassuming star, Ken Ochiai conjures a swan song to a waning art form and those who practice it.

Name : Michael Nordine / Alias : L.A. Weekly
None of this goes down with any real verve, though Kamiyama's wrinkled face is a small marvel of expressivity.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
For an ostensibly soul-deep movie like this to work, we need more than smirks and scowls.

Name : Linda Holmes / Alias : NPR
It's fun to watch Chris Rock; it's just fun. And there are parts of this film where it's fun to watch him in exactly the ways he wants it to be.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
It's a slap-happy movie and often scurrilously funny - the sound of a gifted comic mind finally finding its onscreen voice.

Name : Claudia Puig / Alias : USA Today
Rock's ambitious passion project - he wrote, directed and stars in it - is a bawdy, uninhibited yet thoughtful social satire about fame vs. artistic fulfillment.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
Top Five is a reminder that as often as comedy fails us, sometimes it's our best hope for resuscitation. Seeing it at the end of a crap week, I suddenly felt I could breathe again.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
An innovative take on familiar material, Top Five is an exquisitely paced, rich, idiosyncratic, satirical, yet deeply moving free-form comedy about a Hollywood star who is shadowed for one day by a New York Times reporter.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
Rock has said that he wanted to make a movie that captures the energy of his stand-up. Top Five fits the bill.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Top Five" has the bright, high-gloss feel of the most delicious wish-fulfillment fantasies, but it derives its spiky, propulsive energy from the adamantly forthright figure at its center.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
The sweetest surprise in this raunchy comic ride is how artfully Rock lets down his guard. His confident, prowling wit as a stand-up has finally found its way to the screen, enhanced by a bracing vulnerability.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
[Rock is] still not all the way there in "Top Five," his third effort as writer-director-star. But the movie has so many laughs it hardly matters.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Rock is on a roll again.

Name : Joe Neumaier / Alias : New York Daily News
Just when it seemed like Chris Rock had already done plenty for the culture, along comes his latest work as a writer and director, "Top Five." And it's one of the most vibrant, sly romantic comedies this year.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
A disorganized, dawdling mess of a movie that is rarely anything less than charming.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Welcome back, Chris Rock.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
The mess never coheres, but it sends off you on a high anyway.

Name : David Haglund / Alias : Slate
Extremely enjoyable .

Name : Anna Silman / Alias : Salon.com
Rock still hasn't figured out exactly what he wants you to think of him, but the way the film reflects that uncertainty may be the most interesting thing about it.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
In "Top Five," you sense Rock trying to load all these disparate talents onto a conventional romantic-comedy structure. It's a close call, but it holds.

Name : Chris Vognar / Alias : Dallas Morning News
The movie marks the first time Rock's stand-up persona - cutting, vulnerable, afraid of no sacred cows - has survived intact on the way to the multiplex. That alone is reason for fans to celebrate.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
With "Top Five," Rock has finally made the transition to true movie stardom.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
Top Five finds Rock in an elevated form, at 49. Things change, sometimes for the better.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
What lingers hours later aren't just the laughs but the people.

Name : Lisa Kennedy / Alias : Denver Post
Like Rock's best stand-up shows, Top Five mixes the sweet with the salty, the naughty with the remarkably kind. It celebrates the darkly hilarious with the light of whip-smart observations.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
It can be delightful, intelligent, crude, clumsy and culturally tone-deaf, depending on which scene is rolling by. One minute it's a major letdown, the next minute a joy to watch.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
It can be hard for a movie to dwell on the problems of the rich and famous without seeming a touch self-serving, but Rock always keeps things in perspective.

Name : Jordan Mintzer / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The writing is strong enough that when the humor gives way to drama in the second half, there's enough at stake to keep us interested, although Rock still has plenty of jokes in store for the finale.

Name : Betsy Sharkey / Alias : Los Angeles Times
To the writing, Rock brings the discipline of his stand-up. Even with some improvisation, there is not one throwaway line in this fat-free script.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
"Top Five" is a funny movie, but Rock has his sights set higher than lowbrow, and for the most part, he succeeds.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Top Five is Rock's most accomplished work yet, a truly personal story whose comedic riffs on love, race, sex, and celebrity are carefully woven into a credible romantic plot.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
Chris Rock wrote, directed, and stars in this genial, splendidly constructed, occasionally hilarious comic drama with a reflexive twist.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
You come away from it with the thrilling sensation that you're seeing an artist you thought you knew reinvent himself.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
A romantic comedy that's also an extended riff on art, identity, authenticity and what it means to be a black entertainer .

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Mr. Rock has made a pyrotechnic pinwheel of a personal comedy, and he's had the wisdom to share it with a strong co-star. While he sends sparks flying every which way, Rosario Dawson keeps the story grounded in calm intelligence and classic romance.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
"Top Five" may be Chris Rock's biggest and boldest film as a director and writer, but a sharper, smarter, realer script would have made it far more than just a lazy, lightweight laughfest.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Richard Roeper.com
A seriously funny, semi-autobiographical film that might be the most accomplished work Chris Rock has ever done for the big screen.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out New York
On the surface, a lost-artist comedy in the vein of Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, but more deeply, a referendum on the dead-end choices Rock himself might be feeling.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
You'll likely leave the theater smiling. And when's the last time you cold say that about a Chris Rock movie?

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
The movie, which alternates between hilariously vulgar gags and some electric improvs and riffs by Rock and his cast of all-stars, has the crackle and pop of a live performance - it energizes you.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Raunchy in extremis, often funny and at times touching, "Top Five" is Chris Rock's sincere attempt to craft a film career largely detached from his stand-up clowning.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Rock's fast-talking rhythms are all over this movie, and they lift it up; it's like dropping in on a party full of funny people, and leaving before the evening fades.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
As an actor, Rock doesn't create much of a spark with Dawson, and as a director, he tends to let scenes go on too long.