No Surrender Cinema: Don’t Let Go
We all have that one moment that we wish we could do over. A specific incident or event that we’ve always wondered “what if” about. For Detective Jack Radcliff, his niece is going to help him fix a tragedy that has been haunting him… her own murder. Join me for this edition of No Surrender Cinema as I cover the twisted timeline of 2019’s Don’t Let Go!
Since this is a newer movie and just recently premiered on cable, I know many may have not seen this yet. If you intend to watch it sometime and don’t like spoilers, please don’t read any further, as some major plot points will be discussed in this review.
Radcliff, played by English actor David Oyelowo, is a veteran of the police force who is always looking out for his niece Ashley (Storm Reid). Jack’s brother (Ashley’s father) went the other way in life, and his past as an addict combined with questionable mental health has caused Jack to step in and protect his niece. When Jack receives a call from Ashley that he can’t quite make out, he heads over to the house. Sensing that something is awry, Jack enters cautiously, and finds that his premonition is correct; as he travels through the blood splattered house, he finds everyone dead. Jack’s brother, his wife, Ashley, and even their dog have been killed, and due to his brother’s past (and the discovery of cocaine at the scene), it appears that a relapse led to a murder suicide.
Broken by the deaths of everyone he loves, Jack sits at home and drinks the day away, until the drowning of his sorrows is interrupted by a phone call from Ashley. The same girl that he saw covered in blood mere days ago, the same niece that he laid to rest, is calling his phone. Is it a prank? Is Jack suffering from some type of PTSD? Or is Ashley reaching out from beyond the grave to seek her uncle’s help in finding out who did this to her?
Fortunately for Jack, he’s not breaking down or going crazy. Fortunately for Ashley, she’s… still alive? That’s right, the phone calls that Jack is receiving are no joke. It’s Ashley, the same girl we saw at the beginning of the film waiting for her uncle to pick her up. The same girl that he swore to protect. Except Jack just buried her, so how is she reaching out to him like nothing happened? Because nothing has happened to her…at least not yet. It turns out that Jack’s calls from Ashley are coming from the past, and the murder of his beloved niece hasn’t taken place. Armed with this ability, Jack attempts to gain new knowledge from Ashley in hopes that he can save her life. He has Ashley do a few simple tasks to prove that everything unfolding around him is real, and then begins to piece together what he can, this way he can stop her death from happening.
Past Ashley, not knowing the full reason why her uncle is asking her to do these things, grows confused by Jack’s requests. In the present, Jack’s investigation into the murder puts him at odds with a group of corrupt cops that deal drugs under the alias of one man called Georgie. Jack’s snooping gets him shot in the present day, but Ashley’s actions in the past wind up altering the timeline, sparing Jack’s life, but pushing her own death up further by a day. It also creates a rift between Ashley and Past Jack, because she shows up at his home and becomes perplexed when she finds him to be in perfectly good health and not as despondent as he was on the phone. Past Jack is left wondering what’s gotten into his niece all of a sudden, while Present Jack lays it all on the line, explains to Ashley what’s going on, gains her trust back, and promises that he will stop at nothing to keep her safe and keep her alive. That includes risking his career, the trust of his fellow officers, and his life, over and over again.
Don’t Let Go isn’t particularly original, since the concept borrows from both The Butterfly Effect and Frequency in how it alters the timeline and creates residual effects that have bearing on both past and present. I don’t mean that as a slight, either; both The Butterfly Effect and Frequency are movies that I have a lot of love for, so for Don’t Let Go to pay homage to them here is a formula that works for me. Despite a third act that (to me) is entirely too predictable if you’ve been paying close attention to the film, Jack’s selfless quest to make sure nothing happens to Ashley was enough to keep me invested. We never find out the cause for this breach in the time-space continuum that allows Present Jack and Past Ashley to communicate, but I would still say what we wind up with in the moments prior to the credits rolling is a satisfying conclusion.
Sure, it might seem like something you’ve seen before, but that doesn’t mean you should disregard Don’t Let Go. What worked before in other films works again here, even if the magic that allows the past and present to run simultaneously is never fully explained. The straightforward manner in which Don’t Let Go deals with the story prevents it from being buried in complexities, thus making it easier to capture and hold the audience’s attention. Don’t Let Go is readily available on both physical and streaming media, and is currently on the schedule for the Cinemax family of channels and their on demand catalog. We may not have the benefit of fixing the past, but watching Don’t Let Go is definitely something you should plan on for the future.
