-Written by Kyle Bain.
When a corrupt, sleep deprived bank manager, Andy McNeary (Ryan Barton-Grimley), wakes up to his daughter missing and a mysterious voice coming from the other end of her baby monitor, he is forced to make a decision. He can steal more than two-hundred-thousand dollars or lose his daughter forever and face the consequences of his previous actions. Listen Carefully follows Andy on his harrowing journey.
Maybe this is meant to be a comedic take on those classic horror-thrillers, but it doesn’t play out as such. Listen Carefully is poorly scripted, poorly acted, and ultimately poorly executed. Not a single actor is capable of expressing emotion, making the entirety of the film, in this regard, one dimensional. Barton-Grimley in particular struggles with this–presenting viewers with little to no emotion throughout the entirety of the film.
The issue I’ve found when watching films where the lead is the multi-hyphenate writer, director, and producer is that there’s no one to tell them they’re wrong. It’s their film through and through, and there’s no second voice to help fix the issues with the film. Listen Carefully falls victim to this from the opening seconds. By the end of the opening scene I was frustrated by what this film brought to the table–and things only got worse from there.
I tried so hard to find something I liked about this film. On the surface the very premise of Listen Carefully may have been enough to appeal to viewers, but because it’s never fully fleshed out, because it completely lacks emotion, I couldn’t even settle on that being a positive aspect of the film. I looked for something technical to save me from the torture that is Listen Carefully, but, again, there was nothing there. Shot to look as if someone is always following Andy (which there sort of is), Listen Carefully has the potential to be horrifying (even at the most rudimentary level). Though the use of the camera never amounts to anything–never truly creates any level of intensity or drama. It’s another piece of this film that ultimately fails.
Every once in a while you come across a film that is so bad that you want to tell your friends about it. Films like Birdemic come to mind when thinking of films that fit this description–and Listen Carefully falls in line with it. Part of me wants to tell everyone to watch this film because it’s so frustrating, but the honest critic in me needs to warn you that Listen Carefully should be avoided at all costs. Rarely do I deem a film “bad,” and that’s honestly because I know that someone (Barton-Grimley in this case) poured their heart and soul into the project. However, Listen Carefully is a bad film. Briefly reading his description of how he came up with the idea for this film, there is something to be said about the implications of its plot, however, it’s never brought to life in a way that appeals to viewers.
Written & Directed by Ryan Barton-Grimley.
Starring Ryan Barton-Grimley, Ari Schneider, Simone Barton-Grimley, David Rickabough, Patrick Pankhurst, & Richard Gayler.
1.5/10 = AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS
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