Don't Let Go

First Hit: Visually well crafted and ambitious in concept, ultimately it didn’t quite satisfy.

Films that mess with time (jump time), like “Memento” and “Frequency” have had their ways to jump time and create an engaging story. “Don’t Let Go” does this and then some.

In this story, the deep trusting relationship between a Policeman Jack Radcliff (David Oyelowo) and his niece Ashley (Storm Reed), is put to the test when Ashley, her father (and Jack’s brother) Garret (Brian Tyree Henry), and mother Susan (Shinelle Azoroh) are brutally murdered, or are involved in a murder-suicide.

The film does a great job of showing how close Jack and Ashley are through multiple telephone calls and one on one discussions. He does this because his brother has had a checkered past, and he wants the best for Ashley.

Jack gets a disturbing and interrupting call from Ashley that ends in a hang-up. He drives over to his brother’s home and finds them all murdered. Shocked, he thinks that this could be the result of Garret’s re-involvement in illegal drugs, with the intent to distribute.

Despondent, he’s in shock during the funeral which is then followed by scenes of him sitting at home, at a loss for why this happened.  Shortly after that, he gets a call from Ashley’s phone and the voice on the other end is definitely Ashley, although it is more scratchy sounding than usual. She hangs up. He calls back and gets a message that this number is no longer in use. Shocked he checks the police crime scene file boxes and doesn’t find her phone. Breaking into his brother’s murder scene sealed home, he finds the phone in the tub. It is broken and doesn’t work.

He then gets another call from Ashley from her number, and he begins to talk with her while trying to grapple with how this can be because he’s buried Ashley and yet she’s calling him.

Eventually, he determines that she’s calling him from the past and by slowly accepting that if he can change Ashley’s past actions, just before the murderous event, he is hoping to help her shift her future and his future as well, the one he’s already lived through.

That’s what this film attempts to do, have the audience believe this possible and improbably story of past and future existing at the same time. The work to make this film believable is all up to the acting of Oyelowo because he’s trying to live in three different time frames all at the same time. In doing so, he must juggle and make the audience believe the various versions and scenarios of the story. In two of them he gets shot. One he gets shot by a drive-by shooting. In another he gets shot twice, once in a warehouse and then by a fellow officer. These wounds bring him to the edge of death but also make him figure out who his brother’s murderer is and who might be corrupt in the police department. Ultimately, he’s able to help Ashley stay alive and conversely it allows him to live.

This is a complex film, and I thought the sets and scenes were well designed. The alleyways, buildings, and street scenes were not overpowering, but they brought the right tone and reality to this mystery.

Oyelowo does an outstanding job of creating belief. Less of an actor would have made this film a mess and unbelievable. He was able to use his protective love for Ashley in a most effective way. The whole restaurant gum scene was beautiful. Reed shows again (“A Wrinkle in Time” among her credits) what a wonderful actor she is becoming. Again, watch the restaurant gum scene, she’s magnificent in it. Mykelti Williamson, as fellow police officer and friend Bobby, was excellent as a trusted friend and eventually an antagonist. Jacob Estes wrote and directed this complex and challenging movie. At times, I felt I needed different clarifying touchpoints, but it was well done.

Overall: Although I really liked the components, I still don’t feel that the film finished as well as it could have.

Fences

First Hit:  Excellent acting but this film feels like too much a play.

This is Denzel Washington’s film as he was the main character as well as directing it. It is purely a dialogue based film and there is very little space for it to breathe.

I’m not sure that it could have been done differently as August Wilson who wrote the play also wrote the screenplay. Additionally, Washington and Viola Davis did this on Broadway and therefore their experience as these characters was play based.

Washington as Troy Maxson is a garbage collector (lifter) for the city of Pittsburg. His wife Rose (Davis) takes care of the home. One point made in the film is that Rose manages the money because each Friday he brings home his envelope with $76.00 and he gives it to her. He expounds on this time and time again throughout this film as a way to state who really controls the home in his eyes. They have a home partially purchased by a settlement given to his brother Gabriel (Mykelti Williamson) because he’s got a metal plate in his head. Troy has a sense of guilt about this.

His best friend Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson) is also a lifter and together they talk all day as they lift garbage cans into their truck. Troy protests, asking the city why all the drivers are white and when he’s called down to the commissioner’s office instead of being punished, he’s made a driver.

Troy tells stories in the backyard while drinking gin with Bono. His son Cory (Jovan Adepo) wants his dad to sign football scholarship papers so that he can go to college. Troy refuses because he says nothing will come of it, just as nothing came from his self-aggrandizing baseball abilities. He doesn’t understand that Cory just wants a good education at a good college.

Troy and Rose also have another older son named Lyons (Russell Hornsby) who isn’t willing to work like his dad and wants to be a musician. Unfortunately, he must borrow money from time to time and Troy gives him a hard time each time he asks.

This film is about a man rebelling about his fenced in life, his transgressions, and his son coming out from the control of his father. It is a story that has roots in most families where there are fathers having different plans for their son’s life. This is also a story about friendship in addition to how Troy demeans his own integrity and life by introducing his way to have more freedom.

The sets are simple. There are a couple scenes of Troy working, many backyard and inside their home scenes, and a couple of front yard scenes. I felt as though the backyard sets were very staged for the dialogue and not realistic.

Washington was very strong. He commanded every scene. Davis was wonderful and when it was time for her to shine, she did. Henderson was fantastic as the lifelong friend. Hornsby was good as the older son and Adepo was very strong as the younger son who wanted to find a way out of his current life. Williamson was amazing as the mentally limited brother. His horn blowing scene at the end was sublime. The script by Wilson was too play like and therefore didn’t make use of the big screen. Washington was hampered by both the script and his experience with the play.

Overall:  This is a much better play than film.