[yasr_overall_rating]
A group of friends break into the house of a wealthy blind man, thinking they’ll get away with the perfect heist. They’re wrong.
Director Fede Alvarez is best known for taking on the almost impossible task of re-making Sam Raimi’s horror masterpiece, “The Evil Dead” in 2013. Naturally, when it was announced to the world that Mr. Alvarez would be stepping behind the camera to bring the 1981 original into the 21st century, fans of the series went absolutely crazy. To many, it was sacrilege, almost like taking “The Godfather,” “Jaws,” or even “Star Wars,” and re-making them just for the sake of doing so. People were outraged, and promised to protest the movie when it came out. But a strange thing happened on the way to the multiplex. Early word of mouth indicated that the film was good. In fact, it was very good. And upon general release, fans of the original, those who swore to expostulate it, sat back curiously, and realized that while it wasn’t as good as their beloved pièce de résistance, it was admirable, commendable, even satisfying.
Mr. Alvarez had taken a beloved classic and re-made it utilizing his own unique style and vision and in the process, created a movie that was unsettling, disturbing, and genuinely scary. With “Don’t Breathe,” Mr. Alvarez takes another well-worn genre, the psychological thriller, and once again, proves that he is a director who is not afraid to tackle subject matters that we have all become accustomed to, and then successfully turn it upside down, giving the audience a false sense of security, thinking they know exactly what’s going to happen next, only to have the rug pulled out from under them.
Rocky (Jane Levy), her boyfriend Money (Daniel Zovatto), and best friend Alex (Dylan Minnette), all live in an impoverished suburb of Detroit. Surrounded by crumbling decay and atrophy, their only means of survival, is burglarizing residences in more fortunate neighborhoods and selling their haul for as much as they can. When they discover that an old war vet, who just happens to be blind, lives in a part of town that is practically abandoned, and that he received a large monetary settlement in the accidental death of his young daughter, they think their luck has changed. Expeditiously, they make plans to break into his home but once inside, they gradually realize that while the blind man (Stephen Lang) may be visually impaired, he is more than a match for them. They are now in his territory and as an ex-marine, he has spent years protecting himself from the outside world. With an arsenal of weapons, strategically placed around the house, and a rather large, very unpleasant rottweiler, the trio quickly have the tables turned on them and must decide whether it’s worth trying to find the money, or escape with their lives.
Stephen Lang has made a name for himself over the years playing mostly bad guys, from “The Hard Way, “Tombstone,” “Conan the Barbarian,” and “Avatar,” he is an actor that can chew up all of the scenery around him and spit the leftovers out for everyone else. Here though, he is well-matched by his two younger co-stars, Jane Levy and Dylan Minnette. We realize early on that the only reason they want to complete this one last job is so that they, and Rocky’s young daughter Diddy (Emma Bercovici), can leave town once and for all, and move to California, with the promise of a new beginning and a fresh start, and the thought of several hundred thousand dollars is a very big motivator. But even when they decide to get the hell out of dodge, it’s too late as they become trapped in the blind man’s battlefield, where there’s very little chance they will survive.
Mr. Alvarez creates an authentic and believable storyline that at times, originally seems asinine and harebrained but just like “Evil Dead,” he manages to illicit an onslaught of genuinely convincing performances from his entire cast, and this helps overcompensate the absurdity and ineptitude of some of the film’s apparently clichéd scenarios. The film runs at a brisk 88 minutes and never once drags. “Don’t Breathe” is billed as a horror film and while it is, to a degree, namely because of some of the revelations that develop throughout, first and foremost, it is an incredibly taut and unyielding psychological thriller that grabs you from the beginning and never lets go. Roll on Mr. Alvarez’s next movie.
In theaters Friday, August 26th
