John Chard

Jul 23, 2017

4.0

Ice Ice Baby. After being rendered blind by a suicide bomber, one time war photographer Sara (Michelle Monaghan), finds love with Ryan (Andrew Walker). But one day her life is once again turned upside down when she is terrorised in her own home... Distinctly mundane thriller that harks back to other blind women under threat thrillers released previously. Penthouse North (the swanky place where Sara lives with Ryan) brings absolutely nothing new to the formula, not even - in fact - adding a twist or any sort of surprises. It's interesting to take on board the advancements in technology for the blind, though even this aspect is short changed in the run-of-the-mill plot. The villains are a couple of staple writing jobs, with Michael Keaton as Chad phoning it in, while the attempts to make Chad extra nasty are laughably lazy and irresponsible into the bargain. Monaghan's performance is commendable, she does enough to have you rooting for her whilst enjoying her resourcefulness, and the cinematography (Chris Seager) is most pleasing, both in colour lenses and glorious city scapes. But ultimately, one can forgive implausibilities in a thriller of this type, but not lazy unadventurousness that smacks of film making to fulfil a contract or even as a tax write off job. 4/10

Not only are blind people in the movies always drop-dead gorgeous (unless they’re evil or homeless), but their eyes always are, counterintuitively, their most outstanding feature. Like Sara Taylor (Michelle Monaghan), a photojournalist stationed in Afghanistan whom an explosion leaves permanently blind. Sara will later be described, unironically, as having a "very pretty face" and "soft green eyes;" so soft and green indeed that one wonders why she bothers wearing a pair of thick, dark sunglasses. Okay, so an IED blows up right in your face with enough force to deprive you of sight forever, yet leaves you otherwise unscarred. That dog won’t hunt, monsignor. Then again, this is the kind of movie wherein a cat is thrown over the titular penthouse balcony only to reappear right before the closing credits, alive and well at ground level. Granted, it could be any other black cat, in which case the occurrence would be plain random as opposed to unfathomably stupid.