Welcome to The Best Movie You NEVER Saw, a column dedicated to examining films that have flown under the radar or gained traction throughout the years, earning them a place as a cult classic or underrated gem that was either before it’s time and/or has aged like a fine wine.
This week we’ll be looking at NO WAY OUT!
THE STORY: A Naval attache (Kevin Costner) working at the State Department has a torrid affair with the mistress (Sean Young) of the Secretary of State (Gene Hackman), but when the woman is killed, he finds himself being set-up as both her murderer and a Soviet mole.
THE PLAYERS: Starring: Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young, and Will Patton. Directed by Roger Donaldson.
THE HISTORY: It took a couple of years for Kevin Costner to break into the A-list, and while many say THE UNTOUCHABLES is what made him, NO WAY OUT also played a big role in establishing him as a star. Let me explain. In 1983, Costner was cast in THE BIG CHILL as the friend who commits suicide (that’s his corpse being dressed during the opening credits), but his scenes were excised at the eleventh hour by writer-director Lawrence Kasdan. He felt bad, so when it came time for him to make his follow-up, SILVERADO, he gave him a juicy supporting role, plus he also starred in Kevin Reynolds’ FANDANGO and John Badham’s AMERICAN FLYERS. All three movies flopped, although FANDANGO was seen by Mike Medavoy, the head of Orion Pictures, who decided to build a movie around him. That film became NO WAY OUT.
“I decided to find him a movie after I saw him FANDANGO…My instinct was that Kevin Costner could carry just about any reasonably budgeted film, because he was cut from movie star cloth.” Mike Medavoy memoir – “You’re Only as Good as Your Next One”
Costner was signed to star as Elliot Ness just before NO WAY OUT started filming, and despite being shot second, THE UNTOUCHABLES came out first. Orion held NO WAY OUT back to capitalize on that movie’s hype. While THE UNTOUCHABLES was a big hit, NO WAY OUT also did quite well, earning a solid $35 million at the box office, and that was without big stars like Robert De Niro or Sean Connery supporting him. It was his first solo success and led to Orion casting him in BULL DURHAM, which cemented him as a mega-star.
WHY IT’S GREAT: NO WAY OUT is another one of those movies that, while quite successful when it first came out, is largely obscure nowadays. People from my generation saw it because it was a perennial cable favorite, but like a lot of movies from its era, it’s not really talked about thirty-three years later. That’s too bad because it’s a great example of the kind of high-end, medium budget thrillers studios used to crank out consistently during the eighties and nineties. Most big stars of the era consistently showed up in these kinds of movies, and this genre is one of the reasons an actor like Gene Hackman never stopped working over twenty years, as he was always in such high demand to play bad guys (or once in awhile heroes) in movies like this.
NO WAY OUT is a kinda-sorta remake of a 1948 film noir called THE BIG CLOCK, although the two movies don’t share much beyond the basic premise, that the hero is ordered to track down a murder suspect that’s actually himself, while his boss is the real killer. Other than that, NO WAY OUT feels more like a Tom Clancy film, with Costner very much a Jack Ryan-styled hero as the fresh-faced Naval officer good guy.
Throughout its 100 minute running time, NO WAY OUT does a good job maintaining a sense of urgency, particularly in the second half where the web starts to close in on him, and the twist ending is an absolute killer. Hackman is both sympathetic and loathsome as the villainous Secretary of State, while Will Patton is terrific as his loyal aid. But, other than Costner the one who got put on the map through this movie is Sean Young, who, despite only being in the film for about half an hour, made a huge impression on audiences as Hackman’s mistress and Costner’s love interest. Their chemistry together was palpable and their love scene in the back seat of a limo as scaldingly hot as – well – they both seem pretty into it. It's one of the best sex scenes of the era, although it’s marred by some cheesy eighties music.
BEST SCENE: I’d for sure put the love scene in here but I don’t want to offend anyone reading this who might be a little more prudish, so instead here’s a nifty foot chase that happens during the third act, and is one of several exciting action sequences staged by Roger Donaldson, who went on to become something of a mainstay in the genre.
SEE IT: NO WAY OUT is available to stream free on TubiTV, Pluto and VuduFree in the U.S. In Canada, you can stream it on Prime’s MGM channel and can be bought on iTunes/Google Play in any region.
PARTING SHOT: While NO WAY OUT is definitely a product of its time, thanks mainly to the fact that it’s undeniably all about the Cold War while Maurice Jarre’s score was probably dated even in 1987, it’s a really fun flick to revisit and a nice look at Costner’s early days as a leading man. It’s a cool little movie and its too bad studios have all but given up on this as a genre.