Film review “Don’t Move” (2024)

“Don't Move” is a kidnapping thriller without saying much. Seriously, the well-worn 93-minute two-hander contains very little convincing commentary on its fractured characters or its supposed tension. This film is simply a simulation of the genre beats you'd expect from a story about a man who kidnaps a woman in the woods. The cheesy setup also leaves a lot to be desired, as does the anti-climatic ending. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

With Sam Raimi as producer, directors Brian Netto and Adam Schindler care little for the main character at the center of TJ Cimfels and David Whiteake's unremarkable script. Even though we see Iris (Kelsey Asbille, “Yellowstone”) waking up next to her husband for the first time, we get the feeling that her daze lasts longer than her sleep. The couple tragically lost their son in a hiking accident. While they were carving their initials into a tree, teenage Mateo fell off a cliff (I wish I was kidding). In order not to move her husband, Iris gets dressed in silence that morning and goes out the door without her phone. She drives to a hiking trail with only a pocket knife and her son's red toy boat at her side. Iris parks, walks down the path, climbs over boulders and up to the summit, where she plans to jump to her death.

“Beautiful view,” remarks Richard (Finn Wittrock). Richard, a seemingly brilliant man, disrupts Iris' suicide attempt. He tells how he considered taking his own life years ago when his partner Chloe died in a car accident. By sharing his pain, he somehow upsets Iris. The pair venture back over the rocky terrain to their respective cars. Here Richard kidnaps Iris and injects her with a serum that eventually paralyzes her long enough for him to take her to his remote cabin for the weekend. As you might expect, Richard's foolproof plan doesn't explain Iris' determination. She avoids him for a while before becoming his property again.

“Don’t Move” shares some of the same DNA as M. Night Shyamalan’s “Trap.” Much like Josh Hartnett's enthusiastic Cooper Abbott, the smart Richard is very quick on his feet. He talks nicely to the miner who hides Iris, and quickly comes up with plausible excuses and far-reaching stories for anyone who questions his motives. He also has a family who clearly don't know he's a serial killer. But that's where the comparisons between “Don't Move” and “Trap” end. Ultimately, this film is not psychologically interested in its villain. Richard is nothing more than a menacing presence, a crooked smile with no emotional insight. With a limited character to play with, Wittrock struggles to inject discomfort into lame scenarios that only dull the film's almost non-existent pulse.

One could point to a similar curiosity that the film doesn't actually see Iris. With the character paralyzed for much of the thriller, it's up to Asbille to provide some interiority in a largely silent role. Unfortunately, her darting eyes and twitching muscles (a physical manifestation of the paralyzed grief that has haunted her) can only do so much work. We never really move beyond the simple metaphor of Iris' grief for her son or the depression that has dominated her life since his untimely death. And aside from the briefest of flashbacks, the film never finds a unique way to step outside of the character's frozen exterior. We spend an entire film with Iris but learn nothing new about her that we didn't know in the first ten minutes of the film.

Don't Move also suffers from poor visual effects, a hyperactive score, and an inability to create the tense mood necessary for a thriller like this to work. The best thing that can be said about “Don't Move” is that the time you may have wasted will be at least slightly forgotten if you dare to press play on Netflix.