Washington. Lieutenant Commander Tom has a relationship with Susan, but she is at the same time having an affair with Secretary of Defense Brice, who is married. One night, as he spots someone exiting the house, Brice is angry at Susan for sleeping with another man and in a fit of rage pushes her over the floor and she falls and dies on the ground. In order to deflect from the crime, Brice's assistant Pritchard misleads the Pentagon staff that a suspected Soviet spy Yuri is behind the murder, and hires Tom to investigate the case. Tom knows he is searching for himself. Two witnesses are brought to look for every employee to try to identify Yuri, while a blurry photo of Tom is being reconstructed. Tom finally confronts Brice with evidence that Brice bought a gift to Susan, confirming he knew her, yet Pritchard shoots himself in the office, and thus Brice puts the blame on the deceased as Yuri. Tom, though, sends the evidence to the CIA.
In 1987 Kevin Costner became a star thanks to two films: "The Untouchables" and "No Way Out", but the former is better and more deserving than the latter. Roger Donaldson directs "No Way Out" as a suspenseful thriller, but unfortunately it takes way too long to get to that point, since the whole first third is a messy, chaotic and overlong exposition. The editing should have removed some sequences completely for a faster pace (the unnecessary sequence of Tom and Susan getting intimate in the limousine, even though they just met at a party for the first time; Tom in Manila or on a ship during a storm). After Susan's murder at around 46 minutes into the film, the story takes off, kicking off a dynamic and tense thriller where the protagonist Tom is hired to practically hunt for himself since the Secretary of Defense Brice (Gene Hackman) wants to frame Susan's unknown lover for her murder, which creates a double-edged sword dilemma for Tom who tries to "subtly" sabotage the investigation from within. The best moment is when the investigators find two witnesses who saw Susan's lover and then tour them from office to office throughout the entire Pentagon to search for him, knowing he must still be there, and as they approach Tom's office, Tom deliberately spills some coffee on the table and then sits on it, feigning he has to change his pants as to have an excuse to leave the area, and even says to a guard at the entrance: "Don't let anyone pass!", before he hides in a ventilation shaft in another room. The storyline's logic isn't always plausible (especially that one person alone can simply invent a search for a possible Soviet spy to deflect from his own murder) and the twist ending doesn't work since it makes no sense and comes out of nowhere, yet "No Way Out" still has enough virtues to work.
Grade:++
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