EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE bypassed theaters, heading straight for VOD and for good reason: the film is nothing but an average tale about regret, bereavement, betrayal, and revenge. The studio is hoping Oscar winner Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan will entice viewers enough to give this a shot. Sadly, they shouldn't, but I did just that based upon them and the semi-interesting trailer. The film follows Philip (Affleck), Grace (Monaghan), and Philip's daughter Lucy (played by India Eisley) who are dealing with the loss of their son/brother in Evan, who tragically dies in a car accident that Grace is driving to open the film. From there we're introduced to Philip, who is a psychiatrist and for the entire film, he's nothing more than an emotionless, detached, and broken man who's still trying to cope with the accident 3 years later. His coping mechanism is to occupy himself with his work and patients, while neglecting his family. Grace attempts to cope by reaching out to Philip both emotionally and physically but is rebuffed at every turn. Feeling unsatisfied, she has no outlet or other ways to cope other than to continually swim laps in their backyard pool. Lucy meanwhile is seeking attention and as such, gets kicked out school for doing a line of cocaine in a science lab. Garnering her father's wrath, she soon turns to hate him with the attention she had previously been seeking. A patient that Philip has been treating for some time and is a prototype of a possible new therapy technique that he's been experimenting with suddenly dies. Her brother James Flagg (played wonderfully by Sam Claflin) enters the picture and begins to form a relationship with the family, before Philip believes his intentions aren't as noble as first perceived. From there James slithers his way between Philip and his family, questioning if the family is strong enough to survive James' charm and ulterior motives. Being an R rated film, I would have suspected this would have been made for a younger, PG-13 audience as the twist at the end, can be seen so obviously within the first 10 minutes of the film. Knowing this while watching, the audience can see the trail of verbal cues and breadcrumbs James leaves in some of the dialogue he chooses to use. From there it's watching everything unfold exactly as you'd expect and as such, the film is very mediocre and painfully predictable. On one final note, with a title of EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE, they didn't capitalize on the Sting & the Police song at all during this film, which is a missed opportunity if you ask me. 5/10