Go/Don’t Go, Alex Knapp, Olivia Luccardi (Thriller Movie Review)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

PLOT: Seemingly the only person left alive after an unspecified apocalyptic event, Adam fills his time in some weird ways, and can't stop thinking about his lost love.

REVIEW: Alex Knapp had a good idea for a 20 or 30 minute short film. Problem is, he turned that idea into Go/Don't Go (watch it HERE), a 91 minute feature that serves as his writing and directing debut, and there's not enough going on in this feature to maintain the running time.

Knapp stars in his film as Adam, who was a wallflower type back when civilization was a thing. Now he appears to be the last man on Earth – or at least in his little section of Earth – after some sort of apocalyptic event that we never get any information on. All we know is that Adam has flashbacks to a time when he and his girlfriend K (Olivia Luccardi) were worried about whatever was going on and wondering if they should go to the mountains with her parents. Something went wrong, K and her parents aren't around anymore, and Adam isn't sure whether or not he should go to the mountains alone. Flashbacks to that panicked time aren't the only flashbacks we see involving K, because Adam is thinking about her all the time. He also occasionally has an imaginary conversation with his friend Kyle (Nore Davis).

Even with those disorienting flashbacks, the majority of the film's 91 minutes are spent watching Adam do random stuff around the countryside. He has keys to various homes and businesses throughout the area he's in, and he spends his days walking from place to place, messing around in the businesses, then going off to spend the night in a different house. Luckily, there's still electricity and running water, so Adam isn't too inconvenienced. He can still kick back and watch his tape of The Outer Limits. Whenever a lightbulb burns out in one of the locations he goes to, he gives it a proper burial. He takes long walks, and Knapp wanted us to see a lot of the walking, because the movie is packed with shots of Adam walking from place to place. It's like he was trying to pad the running time out with this stuff, when padding this movie was unnecessary. It would have gone over better with me if it had been shorter.

Adam is just doing random, weird stuff to waste his time, since he has nothing else to do. But you can only watch a movie character waste their own time for so long before it starts to feel like the movie is wasting your time. There may be some viewers who see this as a "wish fulfillment" sort of movie, due to the idea of having a large area to themselves, with plenty of places to explore… but even those who would have fun doing this themselves might find their patience tested. Still, I held on to hope for the duration. The hope that something was going to happen that would be enough payoff to make sitting through the build-up worth it. But Go/Don't Go isn't a big payoff sort of movie.

This isn't to say it's a bad movie. When Adam is doing something other than walking, it can be interesting to see what he gets up to, and the cinematography by Frankie Turiano is nice to look at. This was the first time the cinematographer has worked on a feature, and I look forward to seeing more Turiano imagery in the future. I look forward to seeing more from Knapp as well, both as an actor – he proves here that he can carry a movie, no matter what he is or isn't doing – and as a filmmaker. Maybe his next film will be more my speed.

Considering the "last man on Earth" concept, the imagery, the pace, and the dreamy tone, I'm sure there are going to be a lot of viewers who will be able to tune into Go/Don't Go's wavelength and just enjoy spending 91 minutes in Adam's world. For me, 91 minutes was too much.

Gravitas Ventures is giving Go/Don't Go a Digital, On Demand, and DVD/Blu-ray release on January 12th.