Critic Reviews

The movie carries you along, and it’s got some high-tension moments, but there are one too many coincidental running-into-each-other-in-town close encounters.

Every character is merely a stereotype or symbol, not a fully-fleshed out person. Indeed, one has to wonder what every actor, including Monaghan, is doing in this flimsily written psychological thriller, but perhaps, that question isn’t even worth the speculation.

The cast does a lot of the heavy lifting in the film, which evades exploring the characters' trauma. The emotional drama is a vehicle fueling a messy story in a film primarily concerned with elevating the mystery that so easily unravels by the end.

With only a few fleeting moments of nail-biting thrills, Every Breath You Take remains mostly tepid and frustrating.

The whole thing hangs on a twist that anyone who has ever watched a trashy thriller will have cottoned on to at around the 20-minute mark.

Sam Claflin is best in show, but his performance is undercut by the film’s inability to escalate or explore the ramifications of its premise.

The film initially pretends to have some sensitivity about mental illness, but blatantly trivializes it and uses it as a crutch upon which to hang the villain’s increasingly maniacal actions.

Though the actors suggest a better result, Stein’s thriller is really just a Lifetime movie dressed up in a tux, and the problems start piling up faster than you–or any therapist–can count.