About the film (courtesy of Blumhouse Productions):
Detective Jack Radcliff (David Oyelowo) gets a shocking phone call from his recently murdered niece Ashley (Storm Reid). Working together across time, they race to solve her murder before it can happen. A classic thriller with a supernatural twist, Don’t Let Go is the newest release from Blumhouse, the producers of Get Out.

David Oyelowo has made some stellar choices over the past several years (Selma (2014), Queen of Katwe (2016)) as well as some suspect ones (The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), Gringo (2018)). The same could also be said about Blumhouse Productions. All this really means is that Don’t Let Go will be no sure thing, one way or the other. After reading the next few paragraphs though, you should have a pretty good idea whether or not this will be your next movie choice.

Don’t Let Go was heading down a promising path, at least for a little while. Eventually the story gets a little too complex and uneven to follow. Conceptually speaking, its pace, mysterious vibes and decent action appeared as though this might become another Blumhouse unconventional horror hit. Then, sadly, everything starts to kind of fall apart while becoming slightly less interesting along the way.

Due to the supernatural angle of the film, Don’t Let Go cannot be unfairly marked down due to some rather unbelievable occurrences within the story line. That said, there’s a time and place for going with your imagination and then there’s other moments where you need to reel it in and stay grounded. Writer/director Jacob Estes gets caught up in the mysterious happenings of this murder mystery straying further and further away from potential cohesiveness in lieu of keeping audiences guessing.

Don’t Let Go gets an ‘A’ for initial effort but fails when it comes to finally putting all of the pieces together. The rush towards the conclusion to reveal everything spoils the slow-burn methodical structure that had been nicely put together. David Oyelowo and Storm Reid give emotional performances and have a nice symbiotic connection, even though they are rarely together onscreen. Mykelti Williamson is pretty good as the “concerned partner”. Brian Tyree Henry feels slightly underutilized, which is a shame considering some of his more recent successes. Alfred Molina, Shinelle Azoroh and Byron Mann are a few of the other actors trying to provide further depth and intrigue.

Audiences will be sold on a promising premise from a studio (Blumhouse Productions) that tends to get the most out of their little soldiers. Unfortunately there’s nothing exceeding good about Don’t Let Go. There’s nothing makes me strongly recommend seeing while it’s in theaters, although it make find some success once it’s released on home video. For now, I’d recommend LETTING GO and waiting until you can see it at a discounted price. Even for a late summer thriller (I can’t even pretend that it belongs in a horror category as some have proclaimed), this offering is nothing to leap at.