Tension to spare, but nobody to care about

Rating: 5/10 (12 September 2016)

I don't know whether the remarkable physical resemblance between actor Stephen Lang and horror novelist Stephen King was a factor in Lang's being cast in Don't Breathe, but the similarity provides a nifty extra dimension in a picture with enough plot twists and reversals of fortune to keep the viewer's head spinning for most of its 88-minute running time.
In Don't Breathe, three burglars lured into a life of crime by the economic despair of their Detroit environment seek to score one final payday before retirement by pulling a heist on the home of a reclusive military veteran blinded in battle during the Gulf War. That the veteran resides in the solitary home remaining in an otherwise-deserted neighborhood fails to provide a clue to the erstwhile criminal masterminds that their target knows a thing or two about survival.
From the looks of the trailer, Don't Breathe appeared to be a fairly interesting variation on the "Boy, you picked on the wrong guy this time, punk" theme made popular decades ago by actor Charles Bronson and director Michael Winner in Death Wish and its sequels. I was a little confused that what appeared to be an intense urban drama was being marketed to the public as a horror picture, but sometimes a picture needs that extra little oomph to find an audience.
Don't Breathe as expected turns fairly quickly into a game of cat and mouse between the sight-impaired quarry and the brain-impaired burglars, with the advantage being switched back-and-forth often enough to make the picture almost resemble a Road Runner cartoon. The problem is that about halfway through the picture the plot takes an absurdly-unexpected turn toward the gamy, and launches Don't Breathe into both another dimension and another genre. From that point on, the picture works hard to earn and maintain its R rating.
The ultimate trick played on the audience is that there's really nobody to root for: As in real life, distinctions in morality become blurred---nobody's completely good or completely bad: Even the dog is conflicted. There's tension galore in Don't Breathe, but no emotional investment in the characters...any of them. As a result, I emerged from the screening--maybe escaped would be a more accurate term--feeling a little cheated...and a lot used.
Don't Breathe is making money hand-over-fist, so in the final analysis the morality of the piece matters little to the filmmakers and producers.
But ultimately, before the end of the picture I found myself rooting for Detroit.