Argument
Keanu can't act his way out of a paper bag
Rebuttal
Well, this is a tricky one. First off there is, of course, the question of just what Keanu would be doing in a paper bag to begin with. As his life so far appears to indicate that he is of sound mind, we could probably rule out the possibility of him getting himself into one.
Furthermore, the fact that he apparently needs to get out of the bag suggests that he never wanted to be in there in the first place, so (with the exception of him having split-personality disorder) we can safely conclude that it was someone else who put Keanu into the paper bag.
Now, if someone actually placed Keanu in a paper bag, their intention would probably have included him not being able to get out of the bag easily; otherwise they need not have bothered at all. So from this we can assume that the paper bag in question is, firstly, rather large (enough for Keanu to fit inside), and secondly, rather thick and hard to tear.
We are not told if Keanu has any cutting appliances with him when he is placed into the paper bag, but as most people do not go around carrying such cutting appliances, we can also assume that Keanu has only himself to rely on.
There is now the rather puzzling suggestion that Keanu – or anyone else, for that matter – would try to get out of the paper bag by acting; for as we all know, while there are many ways to get out of a paper bag, acting is not one of them. Perhaps if the prisoner did a crying scene the tears might wet the bag and make it easier to tear apart, but judging from the size of the bag involved, it would take a heck lot of crying before the paper gets sufficiently damp. We do not want Keanu to emerge from the bag only to die of dehydration.
Unless of course the acting in question would result in violent actions, the force of which might eventually tear the bag. In which case I am pretty sure that Keanu would be able to get out of the bag by acting, assuming that the paper bag can actually be torn and is not indestructible.
Of course, there is always the possibility that the kind of acting being referred to here is of the other type, where acting simply means doing something. Seeing as how being stuck in an enclosed paper bag would result in suffocation, I think we can safely assume that anyone who is not suicidal – Keanu included – would indeed take action and attempt to get out as soon as possible.
As such, I conclude that Keanu can indeed act his way out of a paper bag except in cases where one or both of the following conditions hold true:
- The bag is very, very thick
- Someone stuck Keanu in the bag while he was sleeping, and he only noticed after he suffocated to death.