“Don’t Move” is not only poorly made but also does not encompass anything thrilling about abduction. The two-person cast managed to drag the run time to a pathetic 93 minutes but left no worth while add-ons to the actual plot of the movie. In short, the film is pure empty and relies on the typical genre troupes we expect when talking or watching about a woman getting kidnapped by a man in the woods. The overly sweet approach shown at the start was underwhelming to say the least and can’t hold a candle to the anti-climatic ending of the movie. But that is spoiling things quite a bit.
The as always amazing Sam Rami decided to co-produce this movie along with directors Brian Netto and Adam Schindler, which is quite ironic as he cared about how the lead character is portrayed in T.J. Cimfel and David Whiteake’s work that is deemed to be unremarkable and cringe. So Iris (Kelsey Asbille, “Yellowstone”) the character does in fact showcase a riveting scene where she wakes up with her husband but manages to overstay in her dazy state which made little sense as to when she had slept and for how long. The husband and wife duo are imparted the tragic backstory of having lost their only son who was likely 5 or 6 in a freak falling accident. The detail about the son appears to be all but fictional but while the mother and a strong-willed daughter of hers went out for a walk yes they did carve their initials on the tree. Reminiscing about that time makes me sad. So to not disturb her partner, Iris chooses to leave the room nude with just a handheld knife and her son’s toy boat in hand around 10am without a phone.
Iris goes for a walk on the trail, leaps over some boulders, and hikes towards the peak that she intends to jump off of to end her life.
“That’s a Great View,” notes Richard (Finn Wittrock). Richard comes across as a nice enough fellow, yet he interrupts Iris’s attempt on her life. It is a nice story about how years ago, after the death of his partner Chloe in a car crash, he was about to be suicidal. He does somehow talk Iris off a real ledge by letting her into his anguish. Together they make their way back down the uneven terrain towards their vehicles. It is here that Richard kidnaps Iris, administering a serum and paralyzing her while bringing her to a deserted cabin for the. Richard is as intelligent as he is cruel, there is a bizarre expectation that this plan will go better than his other plans that factor Iris into the equation. She manages to evade him for some time only to once again become his possession.
“Don’t Move” is reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan’s “Trap” in some ways. Richard portrays the same savvy and quick character as Josh Hartnett’s Cooper Abbott, especially when it comes to improvising. He’s able to charm the mountain man that does in fact, conceal Iris and gets creative in coming up with broad stories so that no one is suspicious of him. He does appear to have a family in contrast, who seem oblivious to him being a serial killer. However, that is the one and only area that “Don’t Move” can be compared with “Trap”. There’s no psychological approach to this film’s villain. Richard is just a scary guy who has an evil smirk and does not have any emotional aspect. Given that there is not much of a character to work with , Wittrock has to struggle pushing anxiety into terribly uneventful scenes that further slow down the already slow pulse of the movie.
Both of these examples illustrate the similarities that allow one to point a similar incuriosity at how the film does not really have a real image of Iris in their mind. Because this is a character who spends most of the time in the thriller who is simply not in the movie, Asbille has to put some of that in a performance that, for the most part, is not vocal. But, unfortunately, her darting eyes and twitching muscles (which she can use to express the paralyzed sorrow that has plagued her) are only able to assist her in a limited capacity.
The role of a distinguished actor always leaves great artistic room for imaginative interpretation yet we see in the case of Iris that the portrayal never transcends the simplistic nexus. Above all, aside from a minimal number of short pieces of the film which serve more to compliment the fiction than the reality of the situation, it never presents a bold novel way to peel away the layers of pretense of the character. The feature film does not bring any novel insights relative to Iris as within the first 10 minutes of the movie all that should have been stated has been conveyed.
A decent film spoiled by terrible VFX, an excessive soundtrack and an audience that is not involved enough known to be relevant to suspense thrillers is “Don’t Move”. As for this tale, all that can be remarked positively is that should you seek a bit of entertainment for a while on Netflix, some time that you may lose is subsequently easy to erase from your memory.
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