Listen Carefully (2024) by Ryan Barton-Grimley

Director: Ryan Bartlon-Grimley

Year: 2024

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Plot:

Staying home after work, a father left alone with his daughter is distraught to learn that she’s been kidnapped by a group of thugs looking for him to use his bank connections to steal money for them to get her back, and as the night continues finds the line between fantasy and reality shattering.

Review:

There’s not a whole lot to really take in with this one. The central idea and the terrifying nature of the premise make for the best part here, tapping effectively into a genuinely unnerving and disruptive fear that takes place where the sheer panic that emerges following the discovery of her abduction and the general setup of the game that’s to take place for him to get her back is a fantastic starting point. Handled nicely enough alongside the realization that the particular monitor left behind is going to be used to get instructions for what’s going to happen next is an intriguing enough visual, and the whole idea of the hallucinations taking over him the longer it takes leading to some fine gruesome sequences.

While this is all fine, the idea here is taken more into a thriller route than outright genre material as there’s very little interest in the actual game they’re forcing him to play. The idea of playing mind games with a sketchy man with the way his unraveled past is unearthed during the film with a series of reveals showing off the kind of employee he really is which tends to undo almost all of the sympathy being built up about the infant being kidnapped. Rather than deal with the thugs, it just focuses on the race to finish the tasks so it never puts any kind of fear or suspense on the setup which makes everything drastically less interesting over time even with violent hallucinations that show up putting his mind at unease.

Overview: */5

An overall intriguing if somewhat flawed thriller, there’s a lot to like here with fans of this setup even though there are some big problems here that bring this one down. Those who are fine with the approach taken or are fine with it will have a lot the most to like here while most others out there should heed caution with it.