Exit

Directed by Sang-Geun Lee, Exit follows several characters, including Jo Jung-Suk’s Yong-Nam and Lim Yoon-Ah’s Eui-Joo, as they attempt to make their way to safety after a toxic gas envelops an entire district in Seoul, South Korea. Filmmaker Lee, working from his own screenplay, delivers an erratic yet mostly engaging thriller that benefits from an ongoing emphasis on tense, exciting sequences, with the presence of such high-octane moments generally compensating for a narrative that contains its fair share of less-than-captivating interludes and digressions. The less-than-promising atmosphere is undoubtedly exacerbated by an underwhelming opening stretch that does little to inspire confidence, although, by that same token, it’s clear that the viewer’s dwindling interest is resuscitated (and then some) by a fantastic and impressively suspenseful scene that finds Yong-Nam attempting to scale the exterior of a skyscraper – with the effectiveness of this all-too-brief episode paving the way for a mostly watchable midsection and third act. And although the whole thing’s been suffused with a slick, excessively lighthearted feel, Exit is a decent-enough disaster movie that does, generally speaking, manage to exploit its fairly irresistible premise to compelling effect.

**1/2 out of ****