‘Don’t Move’ is an abduction thriller devoid of any weight. The film lacks any insight into its divided and contradicting portrayals or the sorely shallow tension it dangles above its viewers. The setup for this movie is mediocre. All it does is work through plot points common in abduction stories. And what’s even worse is the irritating conclusion, where nothing is resolved or addressed. But I should slow down, these are all far removed from the point I want to make.
Produced by Sam Raimi, Brian Netto and Adam Schindler don’t have any interest for the lead character from the script written by T.J. Cimfel and David Whiteake that is bland to say the least. Where first we see Iris (Kelsey Asbille, “Yellowstone”) waking up next to her husband, she doesn’t seem rested for a moment. This couple is a grieving one they lost their son to an unfortunate hiking accident. While the couple was busy carving their initials into a tree, a toddler Mateo stood on the ledge of a cliff (I know, terrible). Calmly T.J.’s wife makes sure to not make any noise while dressing up for the day and leaves the house without grabbing her phone. Only with a pocket knife and her son’s red toy boat did Iris head on to the car, which was directed to a hiking place.
As Iris sits under a tree, Richard shuffles through the snow outside her house as he cranes his neck trying to peek in. Iris goads him inside, and once she is certain that he has done so, she jogs towards the woods. However, Richard is taller than she is, so he catches her as she strains her sheep’s head hood to glimpse at the high dimming sky.
Thanks to Richard’s abrupt intrusion, Iris decides against killing herself. Richard claims that years earlier he contemplated committing suicide after losing his partner, Chloe, in a car accident. In some manner, he distracts her. They begin their ascent and once they are at the lowest point, towards the end of their excursion, they inject each other’s bodies with a cocktail of drugs allowing Richard to cover the pair of them and take them to his house. Though his original strategy failed, soon everyone will be in witness of the effort of his second to last one. He sets her down, she struggles a wind up, ending in a ‘whoosh.’
“Don’t Move” has the same ‘in your face’ trait as M. Night Shyamalan’s “Trap”. Just like Josh Hartnett’s brilliant Cooper Abbott, Richard is quite quick on his feet. He manages to charm the mountain man keeping Iris and comes up with plausible reasons and wide explanations for anyone who wishes to pry into his motives. He has a family as well who obviously have no idea that he is a serial killer. But this is where the similarities between “Don’t Move” and “Trap” end. At the end of the day, this particular movie is not psychologically concerned with its villain. Richard is at best a crooked smile, silent and all around a peripheral character with no emotional through line. More so, with such a character to play with, Wittrock is left to the mercy of building unease into the terribly lame scenarios that merely render the film’s almost nonexistent pulse death.
You could point a similar incuriosity at the lens which seems not to really see Iris. And this is the consequence of the fact that the character is in a state of paralysis for most of the thriller, it is for Asbille to offer some interiority as most of the role relies on her silence. Darley’s shifty eyes and broken muscle management (some sort of physical representation of the bereaved and frozen thoughts that have plagued her young mind) can only do so much work.
We shift our attention and thoughts, however, from natural or standard metaphors related to Iris’ sorrow over her son or a depression that shaped her life after he died. The film does not creatively transcend the confines of the character’s clinically frozen outer shell, save a couple of the briefest of flashbacks. Iris is present during the entire movie, yet nothing new is revealed about her other than what is told in the first ten minutes of the screen.
Bad overlays, poor edited sound, whiplashing musical score and an incapability to create this kind of claustrophobic atmosphere which every good thriller should have are other limitations of the movie ‘Don’t Move.’ Well, at least the makers of “Don’t Move” don’t waste your time and if you are courageous enough to click on “Don’t Move” on Netflix, you will forget that moment in a while anyway.
For more movies like Don’t Move visit 123Movies.