Lisa Brennan (Angela Dixon) is up to the challenge when she finds herself the centre of a dark web of conspiracy after her baby girl is stolen away and she becomes the number one suspect in a murder investigation. But who is really behind all this?
As you watch Dixon battle her way through the beautiful streets of a foreign land in a frantic search for her kidnapped child, it’s hard not to compare her situation and her performance to that of Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills in the successful Taken trilogy. Fortunately for us, unlike the first 2 instalments of the lucrative franchise, which are just straight-forward abduction movies, there is much more to writer/director Howard J. Ford’s Never Let Go than meets our action-hungry eyes.
Under the wing of one half of the Ford brothers who brought us 2010’s The Dead and 2013’s The Dead 2: India, leading lady Angela Dixon shows some real emotional chops as the distraught but fierce mother on the hunt for her lost cub. Her predicament is truly gut-wrenching as she has no money, no understanding of the language as well as no proof that had brought a child into the country in the first place. The fact that her daughter is only a baby is enough to set you on the edge of your seat!
For those sceptical few, this is not a weepy affair. There are chase sequences a-plenty. The violence is pretty merciless and brutal. And the fight scenes are fast, fun and well executed. Girl’s certainly got the physical chops too. “She’s a mother lifting the bus” as one character poignantly puts it. I don’t know about any bus, but she’s definitely kickin’ ass.
LAST WORDS:
I would go as far as to say that every aspect of this movie is on point, from the acting to the special effects to the cinematography and beyond. The real crime of Never Let Go is not that a baby was stolen from its mother. It’s the unjust fact that because there are no big Hollywood names attached to the movie, this thrilling project probably won’t even receive a quarter of the recognition that it so blatantly deserves.