Daddy of the Year

Rating: 6/10 (3 April 2017)

"Don't Breathe" is an American movie in the English language that is relatively short and stays under 90 minutes including credits. The writer and director is Fede Alvarez, who is probably Uruguay's most known filmmaker now with this film and the new "Evil Dead" in his body of work. Also he seems likely to work on the Lisbeth Salander film(s) in the future. But now let us take a look at this one here. Alvarez recast Jane Levy from "Evil Dead" and if you watch television shows, you may have seen her in "Suburgatory" as well. I personally like her quite a bit. She resembles recent Oscar winner Emma Stone a bit, physically and in terms of talent, even if she did not yet break through on the same level. So yeah I certainly like her, she is pretty stunning, even with bruised face makeup on her head and I also think she is pretty talented. Together with Stephen Lang from "Avatar", she carried this film nicely from start to finish. Levy is the only girl in a trio of semi-professional burglars who set out to rob people's houses. But when they decide to break into a former soldier's house, things don't go exactly as planned and even the fact that he is blind is not helping them at all as all his other senses are somewhat sharpened.
As for Levi's two male supporting actors, they are fine I guess. A bit generic in the ways they were written, especially the kind guy with his daddy and his crush on Levi's character etc. not too inspired. The other one was fun basically and in his crassness pretty entertaining, even if you somewhat expected what would happen to him after he ejaculated in people's houses etc. His demise still came surprisingly quickly. You can structure this film nicely into 3 parts I guess. First would be the introduction to the characters, what they do and their big plan. Second would be the fight for survival inside the guy's house. And third would finally be the solution about Lang's character and why he does what he does and of course the ending. I personally think the second part is probably the weakest. I felt a bit lost there at times. Maybe this was Alvarez' intention too that we would feel like the protagonists who don't know the place and have no clue where they currently are or what to do, but this middle part did not work out as well as the other two I think. Then again, I also did not really like the ending with the loud alarm system to be honest, even if it makes sense somehow. But the insemination scene towards the end was pretty good and really scary, even if the kid of course has to come the very moment Lang's character wants to get her pregnant. Why has he lived for so long anyway while the tough kid dies so early? A bit strange.
Oh yeah, Lang is really good here, strong physical performance. You will need subtitles if you don't speak English, but the movie is also really many times about silence and sounds rather than words, especially in the middle part. I personally liked the final shot as well when we see the two girls head away and even if the female protagonist almost paid for it with her life she committed the perfect crime somehow with what we see in the news at the very end. The biggest moral question arises with Lang's character of course. Sure he does and plans some despicable things in here, but is he really a victim or a perpetrator? He only hurts people who hurt him and cause him harm. And the horrors he's been through in war, the loss of his sight, the loss of his daughter and now maybe the loss of his fortune... If you see what he had to suffer through, is it so absurd that it drove him somewhat insane? And he does not want to kill the girl(s), just let them get away after nine months eventually. Anyway, I think this was a pretty good film. Alvarez did what he had to do in terms of plots (the subplot with the imprisoned girl) to get the film to the 1.5-hour mark and it's all working out pretty well I think. It did feel realistic in my opinion. Now I see there is already a sequel planned, apparently focusing on Lang's and not Levy's character which would somehow make sense and I will make sure I check that one out at some point because I give this first film plus Lang's and Levy's performances a major thumbs-up. A must see if you like psychological horror flicks.