DON'T LET GO (2019)

Studio:      Blumhouse Tilt
Director:    Jacob Aaron Estes
Writer:      Jacob Aaron Estes, Drew Daywalt
Producer:  Jason Blum, Bobby Cohen, David Oyelowo
Stars:     David Oyelowo, Mykelti Williamson, Brian Tyree Henry, Shinelle Azoroh, Byron Mann, April Grace, Storm Reid, Alfred Molina

Review Score:

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Summary:

Inexplicably connected across two timelines, a detective and his dead niece work together to uncover who murdered their family.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Detective Jack Radcliffe receives a worrisome phone call from his beloved niece Ashley. Alarmed, Jack rushes to Ashley’s house and discovers his niece murdered along with her mother Susan and her father Garret. Jack realizes his brother was dealing drugs again when he finds a package containing cocaine.

Two weeks later, Jack receives a call from Ashley’s phone. Confused, Jack goes searching for Ashley’s phone and discovers it still at the crime scene. Ashley calls again. Jack is shocked when he has a conversation with his dead niece.

Jack’s partner Bobby Owens comes to check on him. Bobby also escorts Jack to a meeting with Internal Affairs sergeant Roger Lee because they have to rule out Jack as a murder suspect.

Ashley calls Jack again. Based on the conversation’s context, Jack concludes Ashley is inexplicably calling from a few days before her death. Jack verifies his theory by having Ashley spray paint an X on her house’s shed in the past, which subsequently appears in Jack’s present.

Ashley mentions seeing her dad drive away with someone in a white Porsche. Believing he can use Ashley’s clues to solve her murder before it happens, Jack asks his niece to help him with a case without telling her what is really happening.

Jack finds a note left by his brother that mentions the name Georgie. Jack’s boss Howard Keleshian identifies Georgie as an elusive mystery man connected to several narcotics cases.

Ashley calls to give Jack an address she connected to Georgie, but asks to give it to him in person. Jack vehemently insists that Ashley not come to his house since he cannot have her involve the Jack from her timeline.

Jack investigates the abandoned address. Jack finds a piece of mail linked to the delivery company tape on the box of drugs found under Garret’s bed. A sudden drive-by shooting wounds Jack in his stomach.

Jack staggers into the police evidence room to examine the package recovered from the crime scene. Ashley calls again. Jack tells Ashley to call 911 to have her father locked up for the drugs beneath his bed. Jack gives Bobby’s phone number to Ashley before collapsing from blood loss. Jack flatlines in an ambulance while accompanied by Bobby.

In the past, Ashley goes to see Jack in person because of their bizarre final phone call. Ashley becomes upset with her uncle when that timeline’s Jack doesn’t understand what she asks him about. Ashley returns home and finds the drugs under her dad’s bed. Ashley calls 911.

After a strange vibration, Jack suddenly recovers in a slightly altered future where he wasn’t shot. Confused, Jack reexamines crime scene photos and concludes someone staged Garret’s home to make the deaths look like a murder-suicide.

Back in the past, Ashley tracks her father to a warehouse where she spies him being beaten by a group of men. Ashley calls Jack to tell him what she is seeing. Jack goes to the same location in his timeline.

Jack calls Bobby to run the plates on a white Porsche he finds parked outside the warehouse. Jack gets shot again in a gunfight with an unknown man who gets away.

Meanwhile, Ashley flees from one of her father’s assailants. Ashley drops her backpack in the L.A. River. Ashley’s pursuer retrieves it.

Ashley calls Jack while hiding in a diner. Jack goes to the same diner in his timeline. Jack finally explains what is happening. Jack proves to Ashley that they are talking to each other two weeks apart by having her place different colored gum wads under a table and telling her what they are. Jack admits that Ashley and her family were murdered, but promises they can prevent her death by working together.

Howard and Bobby confront Jack when he retrieves Ashley’s backpack from the evidence room. Although he refuses to say how he knows, Jack reveals the backpack was planted at Ashley’s house because he knows she dropped it in the river.

Bobby reveals that the white Porsche came back as belonging to Roger Lee from Internal Affairs. Howard and Bobby take Jack to supposedly speak to someone named Eaves. On the drive, Howard explains Georgie is the name of a group of dirty cops they have been trying to bring down and Roger Lee is their second in command. Howard adds that Garret was probably murdered when the drug-dealing cabal discovered Garret’s brother was a cop.

Suspicious that Bobby and Howard are part of the conspiracy, Jack draws his gun when they arrive at a remote meeting place. Bobby suddenly shoots Howard. While holding Jack at gunpoint, Bobby reveals Howard was clean. Bobby admits he belongs to the cabal by saying he has orders to execute Jack.

Ashley calls Bobby in her timeline to ask if Bobby can speak to her father about changing his ways. When they arrive at the house however, Bobby reveals his role in the drug-running ring by taking the family at gunpoint.

In the future, Bobby demands to know how Jack knew about the planted backpack. Jack tells Bobby that Ashley told him.

In the past, Bobby demands to know how Ashley knew about the box stashed under Garret’s bed. Bobby murders Ashley’s parents.

Ashley escapes the house with Bobby in pursuit. Ashley calls Jack in the future. Jack puts Ashley on speakerphone so Bobby can hear. With Bobby threatening to shoot him, Jack tells Ashley that the only way he can survive is if Ashley saves herself. Bobby shoots the phone.

Ashley rushes to her uncle’s house. The other Jack sees Bobby holding Ashley at gunpoint. Jack guns down Bobby. The future Jack and Bobby blink out of existence. Jack and Ashley embrace.

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Review:

Police detective Jack Radcliffe thought life was looking up for his loving niece Ashley. Her father Garret’s drug dealing days appeared to finally be behind him. Garret not only rediscovered music, but rekindled his relationship with Ashley’s mother too. Maybe now Ashley wouldn’t always require her uncle’s help whenever mom and dad’s irresponsible selfishness stranded her on the street.

One phone call changes Jack’s idle optimism to world-shattering horror. Alarmed by a frantic message from Ashley, Jack rushes to his brother’s home only to find the entire family murdered, including his niece.

A second phone call turns Jack’s overwhelming grief into adrenalized shock. Two weeks after the tragedy, Jack receives another message from Ashley. Against all logic, his deceased niece appears to be very much alive.

Jack discovers Ashley somehow contacted him from four days before her death. She doesn’t know the fate creeping up on her, but Jack does, and he thinks he can stop it. With his niece unknowingly providing clues from another timeline, Jack races against the clock to unravel the mystery of what happened to Ashley and possibly rewrite his past as well as her future.

Initially titled “Relive” when it premiered at Sundance, “Don’t Let Go” uses a classic paradox premise to spin an unexpectedly moving fable where powerful family bonds break restricting rules of reality. Don’t let the setup’s familiarity lead you into believing the film isn’t fresh. Laser-focused pacing and excellent acting ensure suspense stays at a slant worth investing in. Don’t worry about the film’s concept spiraling out of hand either. Nimble storytelling shoots straight, without forcing confusing complications included only to add an empty illusion of cleverness.

The fact that “Don’t Let Go” doesn’t try fooling anyone with wild swerves can actually detract from the fantasy. Due to its slim cast, the movie has a severe shortage of people to present as red herrings. Figuring out the culprit waiting at the end of the trail isn’t difficult for anyone determined to stay a step ahead of Jack instead of attaching to the emotional arcs.

Fortunately, the mystery isn’t wrapped up exclusively in the whodunit. How and why matter just as much, maybe more, as the movie evolves into a fascinating procedural motivated by grounded drama more than twisty gumshoe gimmickry.

To that end, “Don’t Let Go” sets a stage for David Oyelowo to solidify himself as a captivating lead. The movie requires a performer of extraordinary ability to keep the gas pedal pressed since Jack often interacts with only a prop phone. David Oyelowo does it with deceptive deftness. In as few establishing scenes as possible, Oyelowo creates a complete character who is cunning, caring, and able to form a heartwarming relationship by bouncing off a counterpart who isn’t even in the room with him.

Oyelowo’s gravitas inherently vets Jack’s intellect in fast fashion. Because the confounding circumstances pass his tests, you’re less compelled to question details that don’t concern him. What works for Jack works for the audience.

Storm Reid’s audition reel can consist entirely of her scenes from “Don’t Let Go.” Any agent who needs additional evidence before booking her in future projects may have issues recognizing emerging talent. Reid’s Ashley is wise, witty, and endearing with just the right spice of teenage naivety to cover the character’s gamut of physical trials and psychological tribulations. Her tears project true pain, gut-punching engaged viewers with confident convincingness.

No “time travel” thriller has ever tied up every loose end or held up completely when refrigerator logic is applied in retrospect. Of course this includes “Don’t Let Go.” In addition to carrying a generous pinch of predictability, “Don’t Let Go” bobbles the ball over the goal line when shortchanged moments and characters have trouble making clean blocks. Despite a terrifyingly violent yet blood-pumping climax, abruptness roughs up the ending with what looks like rushed editing rather than inventive intention.

Nevertheless, the movie’s hooks are sharper than its hindrances, and there are overwhelmingly more of the former than there are of the latter. Propelled by its top two performances, “Don’t Let Go” efficiently pulls viewers along from clue to clue, beat to beat, and scene to scene with invigorating tension that rarely allows slack in its rope.

Review Score: 80

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