PENTHOUSE NORTH/BLINDSPOT
US, 2013, 90 minutes, Colour.
Michelle Monaghan, Michael Keaton, Barry Sloane, Andrew L. Walker.
Directed by Joseph Ruben.
Joseph Ruben has directed quite a number of small budget thrillers including Sleeping with the Enemy, Dreamscape, True Believer, The Good Son. This film comes rather later in his career.
After a prologue set in a battle sequence in Afghanistan where the central character is deceived by a suicide bomber posing as a mother with a baby, actually a doll, loses her sight. The action takes up three years later and becomes a variation on the Audrey Hepburn thriller, Wait until Dark.
In that 1967 film, the issue was drugs, and it is here. The photographer’s boyfriend is murdered in their apartment, and a thug terrorises her to tell him where diamonds and drugs have been hidden. When she escapes from the apartment, she literally runs into a man who claims to be a policeman but, in fact, is the head of the gang who seems to be controlling his violent henchman but is setting up a situation with the two of them can terrorise the woman.
Michelle Monaghan is the photographer and plays her being terrified quite convincingly. Surprise is that the head of the gang is played by Michael Keaton in his menacing manner. There is some irony in the concealment of the diamonds – and the photographer’s using this to save herself. And then the question, whether she knew what her boyfriend was up to or not.
An effective small thriller.
1. Thriller? Crime? Blind victim? Twist?
2. The opening, the sequence in Afghanistan, the war action, Sarah as photographer, the dangers, the confrontation with the woman with the baby, the burqa, sinister, eyes, the baby being a doll, the explosion, Sarah being blinded?
3. The written city, three years later, the apartment, Sarah and her relationship with Ryan, New Year’s Eve, the plans for her sister and brother-in-law to come to watch the fireworks, her going to the shops, without a stick, the bicycle knocking over and asking whether she was blind, the man helping her? Her return home?
4. The audience seeing Ryan dead, Sarah not seen, calling out, going around the apartment, the blood, the discovery of the truth? The presence of Chad, his attack on the? His sadistic approach, wanting the information?
5. Her escape, down the stairs, Chad and his pursuit, the caretaker and his death? Going out on the street, meeting Hollander, is claiming he was police, a return to the apartment?
6. The issue of the money, stand over tactics, touches of torture, Hollander seeing the picture and finding the money at the back of the picture? But wanting the drugs? His pretense of leaving? His return, arising Sarah?
7. The conflict between Hollander and Chad, Sarah urging Chad on, there telling the story of Ryan and the truth about him? Sarah suggesting the balcony to search for the drugs, the pots? Chad making the drink for Hollander and discovering the diamonds in the ice?
8. The confrontation between Chad and Hollander, his death?
9. Sarah’s sister coming, pregnant, wanting to come in, her husband the policeman, the information about Ryan? Sarah persuading them to go, the water breaking and their going to the hospital?
10. The final confrontation tween Hollander and Sarah, the guns, the knives? On the balcony, Hollander’s advance, her hearing it, the interruption of the fireworks, her memories of the
close confrontation with the woman in Afghanistan, her shooting Hollander?
11. The knowledge of the diamonds and putting them back in the ice?
