Here's my issue with some of the criticism. If you look at the entire idea of this film, there would be absolutely NO way anyone could win in an action movie - possibly if it was crafted as a drama, yes, but even then something would be classed as "racist" or "offensive" by somebody.
Point by point:
1) The lack of location: If a specific location had been given, then you create another whole genre of complaints about how it's stereotyping [insert country of choice]. If it had been a made up place, then you still would have had complaints because it's obviously based on a real world location, why couldn't they just say so? Also, is the location really important? What does it add to the story to give it a name?
2) The political unrest: Are we really going to argue that political unrest doesn't happen and that it can't happen quite suddenly? Hell, I live in a country where a few months ago a man was murdered walking down the street for the very evil crime of being "not South African". Let's not sugar coat certain truths just because we don't like them. From the review Gendry linked, they did try to justify why the revolution happened (albeit poorly) and specifically why they were targetting Owen Wilson and his family. From everything I've read in this post so far, the problem people are having with the film isn't the fact that there was a revolution. The problem is the fact that "oh dear, we could potentially be showing non white people in a bad light". Show of hands, how many of you would have had an issue (other than the fact that it seems to be a properly schlock action movie) with this film if the citizens of the country in question had been white?
3) The lack of perspective on the other side: Again, it's an action move, not a drama. You are telling a story from the point of view of someone who is trying to survive an attack on his family. Black Hawk Down didn't exactly go into the hugest amount of detail about the "other side" either, yet that movie won awards. You got a brief explanation and then we moved on to the focus of the story. I mean, let's be honest here. If people started chasing you with a gun, would you really go and try to understand their point of view? Could more effort be expended into addressing every nuance of the reason behind the revolution, sure - but again, then you have a drama, not an action movie.
And if that effort had been made, then you would run into a barrage of complaints about how the movie is either unAmerican or it potentially portrays the Asian country of choice as being incapable of diplomacy. After all, if your politics are working properly, you wouldn't need to resort to violence to fix your political issues.
4) The fact that Pierce Brosnan is white. Yes, and if he'd been black/asian and local he would have been criticised as being a
Magical NegroI've possibly missed a few points, but really, how would you have gone with the premise of "in a place I don't know where people start chasing me because of what I represent rather than who I am" without someone accusing you of being racist somehow? You could have set it in space with the people who hate you as aliens and people would have still drawn parallels to race.