Mark Reviews Movies: DON'T LET GO

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 30, 2019

Writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes could have tried to provide an explanation for the central conceit of Don't Let Go, which involves a kind of time travel. Wisely, he doesn't. Who would want to hear a lengthy discussion of how a man is able to speak to his murdered niece, who calls his cellphone in the present from a week in the past, anyway? The idea is too clever, too mournful, and too much an obvious form of wish-fulfillment to be diminished by a muddle of sci-fi or supernatural babble.

The first act genuinely cuts to the heart of this impossible scenario. Jack (David Oyelowo) is an L.A. police detective who always tries to make time for his niece Ashley (Storm Reid). Her father Garret (Brian Tyree Henry) has had problems with drugs in the past, and that continues to put a rift between him and his wife (played by Shinelle Azoroh), who's so much of a non-presence in the girl's life that the mother has maybe a handful of lines (Most of them are pleadings and screaming during the story's climax).

The story opens with Ashley calling her uncle, because her parents forgot to pick her up from the movies. Jack is there right away, and the two sit in a diner, chatting and taking turns drawing on a placemat. One evening, the niece calls again, but Jack is distracted. When she calls again a few days later, Ashley's voice barely comes through all the static on the line, but it's clear that she's in distress.

The call disconnects. He goes to his brother's house and witnesses the aftermath of a brutal crime. His sister-in-law has been shot. Jack's brother has been killed, too. While mourning that loss, Jack realizes who's missing from this picture. Knowing the inevitable of what he'll discover, he finds Ashley, shot and killed in the bathtub.

Days pass. Jack just moves through them. His colleague and friend Bobby (Mykelti Williamson) tries to raise his spirits, but there's no coming back from this. Then Jack's phone rings. The caller ID shows Ashley's picture. The call is coming from her phone. When he does answer, it is Ashley on the other end, and she begins the same conversation Jack was too busy to have with her a week prior.

It seems almost redundant to explain why this gimmick is as promising as it is. It has little to do with plot potential, although that is, unfortunately, how Estes ultimately chooses to utilize it. This is the impossible realization of that universal desire: to be able to speak to a loved one who has died, if only one more time.

Because of the circumstances of Ashley and her parents' death, we know that Estes is going to have to treat this material as a mystery and a thriller. The sequence of that first phone call, only from beyond the grave for one party, seems as if the filmmaker realizes that there is an intense emotional core to this conceit, though.

Yes, Jack rushes over to Ashley's home, still empty in the present, and finds a way to confirm that his niece is indeed calling from a week ago. Yes, she reveals that there might be a piece of the puzzle to her and her parents' murders playing out right in front of her, and Jack begins the story-long process of using information from the past Ashley to solve the crime in the present. If he can figure it out, maybe he can tell her and, in the telling, change what happened.

There's also, though, the monumental weight of this moment playing out, even as all of the plot mechanics are being established and moved forward. Much of that comes from Oyelowo's performance, especially at the beginning and ending of the phone call: Jack realizing he has an opportunity to do the impossible and, after the rush of exposition, allowing himself to take in the combined joy and pain of what has transpired. In this early stage of the plot proper, Estes doesn't just show us that this material simultaneously can be a plot-driven, gimmicky thriller and a story that's about grief, regret, and unlikely hope. He actually forms his narrative around both of those modes.

Then, well, he either forgets that fact or begins to care more about the mechanics of his (admittedly clever) mystery tale. The calls continue. Jack learns more about a drug deal in which his brother had become involved. He continues his investigation, works with Ashley to change the course of recent history, and is shot on two occasions (The first time, he's saved by the change to the timeline, and the second time just seems as if he hasn't learned from his mistakes). The mystery twists and turns with a couple of red herrings. While it's refreshing that Estes doesn't try to explain the workings of this time-traveling phone call thing, the lack of an explanation also starts to feel like trying to get away with a lot of narrative shortcuts.

Basically, Don't Let Go sacrifices the genuine promise of an emotionally rich thriller for the less-promising, hollow thrills of a gimmick. It's a good gimmick, obviously, but that's not enough.

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