After a man’s family dies in what appears to be a murder, he gets a phone call from one of the dead, his niece. He’s not sure if she’s a ghost or if he’s going mad, but as it turns out, he’s not.
“Don’t Let Go” is a film that combines the murder mystery genre with that of time travel in a surprisingly well-rounded plot. Detective Jack Radcliff (David Oyelowo) gets a phone call from his recently murdered niece Ashley (Storm Reid) and working together they try to solve her murder before its too late.
Time travel is a trope that has been used many times throughout film as a whole to varying degrees of success. Someone goes back in time, fixes a problem andddddddd … scene. The world is saved or at the very least, a single character. Movies like this don’t connect on a deeper level with audiences. Sure, they are fun but they stop at that. They don’t evoke emotion. “Don’t Let Go” seems to do this thanks to acting done in blind faith and a sense of gritty realness. You are connected to Radcliff as he leads Ashley towards an outcome in which she may not perish and at times you are faced with a reality that is sickening to look at but very real. You don’t want to look away. You are rooting for the two of them the whole time.
The on-screen chemistry between Oyelowo and Reid is impressive and, at times, it carries the film to where it needs to be in order to pick itself back up and move forward. The uncle/niece duo works well in the film much better than a father/daughter duo or budding friendship type of dynamic ever would. Sure, “Don’t Let Go” may oversimplify things a little too much and over-explain plot points that really have no bearing on the outcome of the story but it is a film that an audience can connect with.
In Theaters Friday, August 30th
