If you’re like me, you’ve seen the original Don’t Breathe. You’re probably left wondering, what kind of silly script could they come up with? This is quintessentially a one-and-done type of film. Finally, I’m watching a movie that I haven’t seen, so I have no real idea of what to expect. Wait, yes I do. I expect to hate most of the characters and really enjoy Stephen Lang again. There are far worse things in this world to expect. I found this on Starz.
Start Film
Norman now has a daughter I guess, named Phoenix. She is being tested at survival and failed. She wants to go to town with Hernandez. Supposedly, all pictures of her mom burned in a house fire. Hernande brings her to a very destroyed house. Someone or something is in the house, so Phoenix runs off. Phoenix is very lonely and fantasizes about having friends. She has Shadow with her, the rottweiler. Phoenix has to go pee and some dude named Raylan comes in, and he is a little aggressive but she has Shadow, so he backed off. Raylan, I suspect, is gonna get got by the end of this. Hernandez offers to take her again next week, but Norm says no.
Hernandez runs into Raylan at night, his truck is blocking the road. He reminds me of a few people. He moves the truck and when she comes in, she is attacked and bludgeoned by a hammer. I think she’s dead.
Phoenix wants to go to school and be normal. Norm thinks that he’s enough of a companion, but she disagrees. She wants to go to the Covenant Shelter. Raylan and his 2 cohorts are by Norm’s house. Shadow is checking out something outside. When Norm goes to feed her, her dish is still full.
2 guys entered the home while he was outside. The hammer guy, named Jim-Bob, I’m just calling him Jim, and a dude named Duke. I feel that Shadow is dead. Way to kill the best character. Phoenix is scared and notices the lights turned on and crawls under the bed when Duke enters. I already like Phoenix more than Rocky.
I always like the storage closets under a stairway. Jim almost found Phoenix, but he gave up too quickly. Norman is still looking/searching for Shadow. What verb do you use for a blind man? Yup, Shadow is dead. You bastards! This film has given us no grey area. We have good guys and bad guys.
Phoenix goes to leave and Jim blasts his gun to whiz past her head. Wrong choice, Hoss. Norm breaks the window and grabs him, Jim saves himself with the hammer. Duke chases Phoenix. She is in this weird metal container downstairs where she is barricaded, and she is bleeding from her fall. Norm is sealing up his hammer wound with glue. I am okay if I never have to do that, but if I do, I would feel incredibly manly, and probably nauseous. Mostly nauseous.
Who is this blond dude? Well, he is looking through the bloody garage and just got abducted and taken down by Norm. Jom finds him and the blond guy’s mouth is glued shut. Jim tells him to open his jaw. Jim pierces through his cheek with a screwdriver. Damn. Jim also finds out that Norm is a Navy SEAL. Blond cuts his mouth open with a shard of glass.
Duke has been pouring water into Phoenix’s chamber. Smart. Norm gets downstairs, and turns off the water. Duke is all alone. Is Duke related to Jon Berenthal? Duke has threatened to electrocute Phoenix. Norm rolls out an open propane tank, so now Duke can’t use the gun. Duke sees a knife but gives away his position. Norm goes for the attack. They fight and tussle. Norm tries a rear naked choke. The water gets accidentally turned up and Duke left the livewire up top. And now Duke has the knife. Norm knows enough to pull the wire away, but Phoenix can’t open the door. Duke says that Norm is tough, but he’s done. Norm is behind a table, and uses the wire to cause a spark and explode Duke.
The container is full of water. Raylan is now there. Norm knocks over the containers, that had to have been so heavy. He saves her. Raylan has another gang member with him. Phoenix sees Duke all burned up. The gang makes their way downstairs. They find a burned Duke. Norm and Phoenix have escaped through a basement corridor. They are out in the greenhouse and are surrounded. This gang is relatively inefficient. I think the blond is named Jared and the fifth member, now fourth, is Raul.
Raylan is talking out loud to Phoenix about how dangerous Norm is. Norm freaks out. Phoenix prevents Raylan from shooting Norm. Raylan also has a streak of white hair, just like Phoenix. Raylan explains that there was a fire in his house, but he spent 8 years in prison. Norm found her and raised her as his own. Raylan is her daddy, and Norm must die. But not in front of Raylan. this gives Norm a chance to escape. Raylan calls him a coward for running away, says the guy that brought 5 guys to take on one.
Jared is ordered to take Phoenix to the truck. She stabs him in the foot with a pitchfork. He talks shit. He gets taken down by Norm with a small handheld garden rake. I don’t know what the correct name for the tool is. Jared has had a bad night. Nope, it got worse. Norm just repeatedly smashed in Jared’s face with a big shovel. Nice. Raylan, your gang really is incompetent. This Kentertains me.
Jim sees that they went back into the basement, but Raylan refuses to let Jim follow because that’s what he wants. Time to have the dog go after Norm. Phoenix has her little meltdown because she has questions, instead of trying to be rescued. I can’t be mad at that. Phoenix locks herself in a room and escapes out a window. Norm tries talking to the dog. The dog isn’t scared of his gun, that’s for sure. Phoenix makes it to the ground and attempts to walk away, but Raul chloroforms her.
Norm is making progress with the dog. They get Phoenix in the truck. Raylan grabs some Molotovs. Raul discourages it because he worries about the dog’s well-being. Raylan says the dog is dead, but Raul doesn’t like this. Jim and Raylan set the house ablaze. The dog has calmed sensing the danger. Norm rescues the dog and the dog escapes. But it is getting very intense for Norm. He falls backward on top of the greenhouse and then that gives way, but he is now outside. A little worse for wear. But where is the new dog?
Raylan and crew head back to a hotel. This is their hideout, I guess. Raylan tries to bond with his daughter. She finds out that she has no siblings, her birthday is February 20th, her mom’s name was Josephine, and her real name is Tara. She wants to go to the Covenant Shelter, and he says that she is free to go. So you risked 2 of your gang members’ lives to just let her go? She gets to the front door, then hears a woman in a wheelchair singing the song that she always remembers her mom singing to her. They hug and I can’t tell if this is weird, creepy, or touching.
Josephine shows her pictures of when she was a baby. Josephine has a horrible cough from the fire. They used to run a meth lab. That is what caused the explosion, I am assuming. Josephine reveals that she is dying. The chemicals poisoned her blood. Josephine needs a heart transplant from a direct relative. And Raylan drugged the juice that he gave Phoenix. Nothing selfish about that. Josephine says that Phoenix will live on in her.
Norm wakes up and the dog is with him. Norm hears bells jingling. More aptly, he hears keys jangling. inside a van, but it’s not down by the river. No, it is Hernandez and her dead body. The dog stays with Norm despite Norm telling the dog to go home, then to stay. Now we get some hard rock music. I just saw a machete, from the back of the van. He adds the jangling part to the dog’s collar and attaches a leash and tells the dog to go home. Okay, this is exciting.
Phoenix wakes up on an operating table, along with her mom. The doctor has to cut the heart out while Phoenix is still breathing. Josphine whispers thank you. Raul thinks this is all wrong. Jim says that Josephine was the cook and they need a cook to survive. Raul still ain’t down with this. This is fucked up, even by my standards of fucked up. He starts the saw, and the power is turned off. Raylan sends Jim and Raul to check it out.
We have about 20 minutes remaining. I imagine we will see some bodies hacked, perhaps limbs get torn off or cut off, there is a machete in play, and much more.
Jim switches the power on and the machete comes swinging. Norm cuts the power again. Jared was Jim’s brother. So Jim gets the upper hand with his long hammer. While Norm is down, he pulls out a metal ball that jingles grabs Jim’s arm, snaps it, and throws the ball in Jim’s mouth. Now he can hear him. Smart. Norm has the hammer now. Jim sees the gun. As Jim goes for the gun, Norm throws the hammer and nails Jim in the dome. “This is for Shadow” and he gets his head pounded in.
Raylan wonders how Norm found the hideout, and in comes the jingling dog, haha. The doctor can’t work without power, so change in plans. Raylan sends Raul and all the unnamed guys to find and kill Norm. This is better than all of The Crow sequels.
We got 4 guys who find Norm laying on his back and find Jim dead. The room is flooded slightly and this is perfect so Norm can hear. Once again, this makes more sense than the original. Okay, Norm just shot 3 of them. That makes less sense. Damnit. Raul never walked toward Norm. He tells Norm that they are gonna kill Phoenix and that isn’t cool with him. Tells him that the ladder behind him will lead him to them. Norm still has the machete. So Raul was the hero that this movie truly needed.
Phoenix tells them that Norm is gonna kill them all. the doctor says fuck it, I’m out. He escaped but I’m pretty sure just got killed. The doc is dead. And by the doc are lots of bug killer spray going off. So now Norm attacks. He gets some nice hits in with the machete. Raylan, you are very bad with your aiming. So bad that he shot and killed Josephine. Ray and Norm are tussling. Phoenix is handcuffed to her mom’s corpse which is moving a motorized wheelchair in a pool room. What can go wrong?
Phoenix is actually holding her mom up. She grabs a machete and starts chopping at her mom’s arm, but instead, she falls along with her mom to the deep end of the empty pool. Both guys are pretty cut up at this point. The dog attacks Raylan. He tosses the dog out the window, but to the next room. The dog is still alive. Norm then jams his thumbs into Raylan’s eyeballs so Raylan is now blind. Phoenix is now freed from her mom.
Norm tells Phoenix not to come near him. He admits that everything is true, that he is no father. He admits to having raped women. Wait, that goes against the previous film. He tells her that she can’t be around him because he is a monster. As he cries to himself, Raylan gets up and stabs Norm. As he goes to slit Norm’s throat, Phoenix stabs Ray from behind. Ray flops and lands side by side with Josephine. She applies pressure to his stab wound, but he takes her hand away and tells her that she has already helped him. And then he bleeds out. Well, that was sad. Not like Man on Fire, but still sad. She leaves.
She goes to the shelter and finally talks to the kids that she was afraid to talk to before. The girl asks her what he name is, and he says that her name is Phoenix.
During the credits, the dog licks Norm’s hand and one of the fingers moves, because of course it does!!!
End Film
Wait, wait, wait, how the hell is this in the horror section? This was an action drama more than a horror. I’m not exactly sure what percentage of this can even be classified as horror. The child abduction and the threat of removing her heart while breathing, I suppose. But to reference Man on Fire again, that has a lot of gruesome stuff too. I wouldn’t classify this as horror.
With that being said, that was fun as hell. I had a great time with this one. I have been told that I don’t like action movies, that I don’t get them. Are you kidding me? I like action when it speaks to me, usually with a machete. This was a wild ride. Yes, you could have speculated how this would all play out, as it has a lot of Crow qualities, but that didn’t stop it from being fun.
Is this a good movie? Kinda. Much like I suggested in my Jack Frost review, good isn’t nearly as important as fun sometimes. The Substitute 3 is one of the finest action movies of my lifetime, and it’s fun as hell. Is it a good movie? Who cares?
Stephen Lang needs to do a film with Liam Neeson asap. I find him more and more entertaining with each thing I see him in. I am going to recommend this if you liked or disliked the first film. More to the point, if you like revenge films with a badass dude, this is it. Is it entirely reasonable? Nah, but I am not gonna complain too much.
Also, mad props to Madelyn Grace, the girl who played Phoenix. She did a really great job in this role. She was actually a better actor than most of the adults in this film, in my opinion. I thought Adam Young (Jim-Bob) and Christian Zagia (Raul) also stood out a bit.
Final Rating: 6.4 – Yes, I am going that high, surprisingly.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Screen Gems (presents)
- Stage 6 Films (presents)
- Ghost House Pictures (in association with)
- Bad Hombre
- Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.