No Surrender Cinema: No One Lives
A group of goons with a knack for getting away with murder set their sights on easy prey, but the tables start to turn when the victim reveals himself to have a violent side of his own. It’s killers vs. killer in this month’s No Surrender Cinema when a psychopath seeks vengeance on a depraved gang and will stop at nothing to make sure that No One Lives!
Hardened criminal Hoag (Lee Tergesen) is the patriarch of a family of felons consisting of his brother Ethan (Former WWE wrestler Brodus Clay, aka Tyrus from FOX News), daughter Amber and her boyfriend Denny, Hoag’s own girlfriend Tamara, and deranged associate Flynn. Fresh off of their latest heist turning into a murder thanks to Flynn’s loose cannon nature, the group is attempting to lay low. At the same time, Betty (Laura Ramsey) and her boyfriend (Luke Evans, best known as Owen Shaw in the Fast and the Furious franchise) are also looking for some rest and relaxation. The couple seem to be a bit disconnected from each other, but their disagreements become the least of their worries when Flynn figures them for a rich couple and kidnaps them. Next thing you know, Ethan is holding them hostage and threatens the Man With No Name (taking a page from the Banshee playbook, Evans’ character is never named, and is credited as “Driver”) by holding a knife to his lady’s throat, not expecting Betty to sacrifice herself and force her own throat to be cut. This freaks Ethan out,and rightfully so, as Betty’s death before his eyes causes something inside of Driver to snap, and he pummels Ethan before impaling his jaw on the open handcuffs.
Over at Hoag’s hideout, Flynn goes through Driver and Betty’s car, looking for valuables only to come across something much more unexpected. Locked in the false bottom of the trunk is Emma Ward, a girl who had gone missing the night that a mass murder happened at a party she attended. Since that night, Emma, a young heiress, has been Driver’s hostage. In the opening moments of No One Lives it appeared that the girl we now know as Emma had escaped her captor, but now we know she was recaptured and stuffed in the trunk. Emma frantically wonders what’s become of Driver, but soon realizes that the company she finds herself in is no better than what she’s had to deal with. As Hoag and his crew debate on how to deal with Driver, Emma point blank tells them that he’s going to kill them all en route to reclaiming her for his own.
Rather than pounce on Denny and Tamara when they come for Ethan, Driver hides inside his dead body and hitches a ride to the gang’s hideout. Once on site, the blood soaked Driver gets to work, systematically taking each member of the gang out. He rigs a contraption to open fire on the residence and draw them out. He tortures Hoag before turning him into hamburger (literally). When Denny tries to jumpstart an old Jeep so the gang can make their getaway, he has his face shoved into the engine. Amber nearly escapes Driver, but winds up getting run over by Flynn when everyone scatters. During all of the carnage, Emma remains remarkably calm, and even standoffish to her new captors, constantly reminding them that no matter what they think, they’ll all be dead soon. It’s not so much that she’s rooting for Driver as she’s come to accept her fate, but this trait does not exactly make her the most sympathetic damsel in distress.
After dumping an injured Denny at the hospital, Flynn, Tamara, and Emma hide out at a local motel; the same one that Driver and Betty checked into at the beginning of the film. It’s not long before Driver is on site again, and the next sequence of events sees Tamara dying, Emma escaping, Flynn being run over, and Emma taking a stand against the man who murdered her friends. The final showdown sees Emma and Driver each save the other from Flynn at different points and for different reasons, and it all leads to a bloody finale where one character is reminded of the film’s title in grisly fashion.
As I mentioned when I recommended this film in my Quarantine TV column, No One Lives is the WWE film that no one remembers. Buried under their supposed “comedies” and a seemingly endless supply of The Marine movies that was barely a blip on the entertainment radar in 2012, but is chock full of fast-paced, bloody fun. That’s not to say it’s without its flaws, because there are several holes in the script that they’ve left for us to fill in. It’s obvious when the scars on Betty’s body are visible on Emma as well that Betty herself was once a victim of Driver, and developed some form of Stockholm Syndrome. It’s also implied that Driver had feelings for Emma, which could explain his relentless pursuit of her after Flynn finds out who she really is.
No One Lives requires no purchase or subscription for you to watch, because it’s currently available on the free streaming service Tubi. This is an action thriller that doesn’t pull any punches, and the bloodshed will satisfy fans of similar genre films like Saw. Evans’ Driver is far from being a truly memorable character, but I enjoyed watching him carry out his mission without seeking redemption or resorting to wisecracks. This is 86 minutes of a killer killing killers, and the straight up slaughter will keep you engaged all the way through. Seek this one out as soon as your schedule allows.
