Two out of Three Strikes

Rating: 5/10 (23 October 2017)

DON'T BREATHE is a wonderfully shot, well-paced, and well-performed crime thriller, with sorely underrated character actor Stephen Lang turning another terrific performance as The Blind Man. I was ready to believe that its biggest flaw was an ill-fitting title (guys, come on, you could have done much better than "Don't Speak"; it almost made me skip it as another lame horror film). The plot was unique enough to reel me in: a trio of home invaders getting the tables turned on them when they try to rob an old blind man. Much of the movie is done so well that I don't need to elaborate here; I'll just say it's worth seeing, but I'll offer up its central flaw as a caveat: Ironically, the filmmakers seem to suffer from a blind spot of their own by confusing who we are meant to root for with who we should root for, and why.
"Rocky", the would-be heroine, keeps nice-guy Alex in the friend zone while she and her wanna-be gangster boyfriend "Money" (really?) use Alex to burglarize homes. Their spree is made possible by Alex's dad working for a home security company that installs the alarms of the places they burgle, or something like that. The problem is Rocky, who is uninteresting and a bit of an a-hole, yet we're intended to root for her.
Strike One is Rocky taking advantage of Alex. Rocky has no redeeming qualities, so the only apparent reason Alex likes her is that she's hot. Knowing this, the morally bankrupt Rocky is able to play the sap like a fiddle, easily bending him to her will and immediately making her not very root-able for. The viewer is meant to sympathize with Rocky purely on the merit of her having a crappy family home, a crappy mom, etc., as if her unfortunate situation makes her a lovable hero, not, you know, her actions or personality. Or I suppose that, like Alex, we're intended to sympathize with her just because she's hot. Oh, wait...she has a kid. A daughter named "Diddy" for some reason that goes unexplained. I almost forgot since Diddy is only there as part of the scenery for one scene. That's why we should care, because she's doing it for her kid's life not to suck. Sure (ahem).
Even if so, why does Alex have to risk his life and his dad's job and reputation for her effing kid? When Alex opts out of this job stating those reasons, Rocky gives no Fs about that. That sweet life she's dreaming of with her crappy boyfriend will be made on Alex's bones, if need be. She actually tells him that once they're done, it's 'Sayonara, buddy'. But when Rocky says please, the sap is all in, cause hey...maybe someday she'll realize what a swell guy he is and what a jerk her thug boyfriend is.
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The Blind Man's backstory is his daughter was killed in a hit-and- run, producing his large settlement. We soon find out that the driver who committed the manslaughter got away with it, and she's now chained up in The Blind Man's gilded cage, barefoot 'n pregnant (literally) with his replacement baby via turkey baster insemination. (I'm not positive but I think we're supposed to overlook the fact that she took a life and got away with it.) After Rocky and Alex's shenanigans cause the death of the kidnapped woman, The Blind Man ultimately captures and tries to inseminate Rocky to replace the lost child. Alex miraculously survives the sweet embrace of death so that he can rescue Rocky from Karmic Recompense. Again, this sap will do anything for a girl who gives no shits about him, including moving away from the light to save her.
Leading us to Strike Two:
When she's free, Rocky gets her licks in on The Blind Man for trying to violate her. Yay, physical aggression = feminism! (Except that she had to be rescued by a man, which I've been told is very anti-feminist in a narrative.) ANYWAY...this is meant to be Big Cheer moment for the heroine of the story for having triumphed over the evil of nearly being violated...except for the tiny problem of SHE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN IN THAT SITUATION TO BEGIN WITH IF SHE WASN'T TRYING TO ROB THE GUY. The issue here is culpability (or, in the parlance of our times, "victim blaming"). Now one could argue that home invasion/robbery is a "victimless" crime, or at least isn't nearly as high on the moral depravity scale as a forced insemination violation...but does Rocky bear no part of the blame for her fate, even if plotting to rip off a blind man is what got her into this predicament? If we say that Money 'had it coming to him' when getting his brains blown out by The Blind Man, doesn't that imply that Rocky had it coming, too? Maybe not, but regardless, we're meant to applaud her striking back. Against the blind guy she was trying to rob.
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Don't be misled by my raking the movie over the coals a bit. If it were a hopeless piece of crap film, I wouldn't care, but it was good enough to wish it was better. So despite that the moral center of the film is horribly imbalanced, it certainly has enough going for it to be entertaining, IMO. Give it a shot, maybe you'll like DON'T BREATHE more than I did. A note to the filmmakers, though, for your next flick: by default, the audience roots for the guy seeking justice and protecting himself, not for the a-hole characters who killed his kid and trying to rob him. You'd do well to write your story accordingly.