PLOT SUMMARY: After Caitlin witnesses a mugging incident where the victim dies. she is certain something evil is now following her and the other witnesses.
We all like to believe we are nice, courageous, selfless people. We’ve seen enough superhero movies to believe that f we had the same powers, we would do good for mankind too.
And maybe some of us do manage to help others without thinking about ourselves first. But most of us are always going to think about the repercussions of helping others, especially where danger is involved.
If we see someone getting mugged or beaten up unless we know for sure we can get the upper hand, will we really intervene, knowing we could be attacked too, or worse, the criminal could get away, find us, and go after our loved ones too?
It is too much of a risk. Especially when you have dependents, you are unlikely to put yourself at risk to help a stranger.
Thinking about the welfare of you and your loved ones get termed selfish. The people who think you should have helped rather than be a witness are the same people who would do exactly the same thing you did. But they’re not really going to believe that about themselves, are they?
The people who blame others for not putting your life at risk for a stranger are the same people who will hide behind fences and trees and sometimes resort to taking videos of the incident to post on social media.
When we don’t help someone in trouble because of whatever reasons we justify our actions with, we are left with fleeting guilt. It will come back to haunt us and we will stuff it behind logical reasoning and justification.
But what if there are far more dangerous repercussions, then?
Don’t Look Back has an interesting concept and the first half is definitely thrilling enough to keep you hooked. The second act starts to unravel though and you’ll scratch your head wondering what the title has to do with the movie.
Don’t Look Back? If someone is in trouble and calling for help, don’t look back? If you are haunted by your guilt don’t look back at your memories? Don’t Look Back and you won’t see the person you didn’t help haunt you?
DON'T LOOK BACK (GOOD SAMARITAN) Movie Plot
Anyway, getting back to the movie we see clips of Good Samaritans and the ones who think ignorance is bliss.
Then we meet Caitlin who wakes up thinking there’s an intruder in her house when it is only her dad making her pancakes for her birthday. Caitlin has just lost her mother and missed the sprinkles over her pancakes and bacon which her father does for her.
Her father makes an inappropriate comment about getting an intimate birthday gift from her boyfriend and Caitlin is so grossed out that when she hears a knock on the door she goes to open it without looking out the peephole or window or anything. She must live in a safe enough neighborhood to just be opening the door for anyone who knocks.
Caitlin learns the hard way that she shouldn’t be opening doors for anybody.
Robbers enter with a gun, knock her out but shoot dead her father. They leave immediately without stealing anything.
Months later, Caitlin is speaking with her therapist and talking about moving on with her life. She also wants to know if her medicines are causing hallucinations. She goes to see her ever-supportive boyfriend Josh who is trying to help her kick her nicotine habit.
Caitlin isn’t amused and decides to go for a run. She goes to the park and sees a lot of shady people and runs on an isolated path. She drops her water bottle and a man hands it back to her and immediately introduces himself as Douglas. Caitlin is flustered and apologizes.
Turns out meeting Caitlin was the unluckiest moment in his life because the very next second, he’s beaten up in broad daylight by a mugger.
There are other people around, a couple Maria and Curt, Althea, Tony and Nathan. Caitlin freezes as Douglas falls and calls for help.
Nathan raises his phone and takes a video of Douglas being beaten up. No one does anything and seconds later, Caitlin recovers, snatches Nathan’s phone because she doesn’t have her own for some reason, and calls for help.
Unfortunately, it is too late for Douglas who dies. The witnesses are called in for questioning and Althea reasons she has a son she needs to think about. Nathan says he was recording the video to help the police.
Word gets out that there were witnesses who did absolutely nothing while a man was getting beaten up. News channels begin to debate about spectators who should have intervened instead of doing nothing.
Nathan comes on a news channel and has no regrets about not helping Douglas because hey, at least he took the video.
Caitlin learns there’s a vigil for Douglas and goes to the park. Over there, none of the other witnesses are there except for Althea who tells Caitlin she has a son she needed to think about at that moment.
Caitlin meets Douglas’ brother Lucas who is grief-stricken but also wants to know why the witnesses didn’t help. Caitlin doesn’t tell him she was a witness but does tell him she understands how she feels because she lost a loved one too.
Later Josh takes Caitlin to get some hot chocolate at a cafe where she overhears two guys talking about Nathan’s video and how gruesome it is to watch. One of them says that Nathan lives just upstairs. Caitlin freaks out and goes to the washroom to splash water on her face and gets spooked when someone else appears.
She heads out and Josh is about to console her when a body drops right in front of Caitlin. It’s Nathan.
He died just before Caitlin saw a raven sitting nearby.
Caitlin keeps talking about signs and that Douglas has come back to haunt her. Josh thinks it is her hallucinations.
The police call her to come to the station and Caitlin sees Lucas again who seems to have a cordial relationship with everyone at the station.
When the detective handling Douglas’ case calls her inside, Lucas gets curious especially since the officer at the reception told him he would get to see the detective first.
Caitlin sees the other witnesses present in the room and talks about seeing a hooded figure pushing Nathan out the window. The others aren’t too pleased to hear that. Lucas enters the room and has now learned the identities of all those stood by to watch his brother die. He gets angry at Caitlin for lying to his face. The detective takes Lucas away and then tells the others they needed to be careful, and calls Caitlin to his office.
He could have done this over the phone but the detective probably called all the witnesses and Lucas at the same time so he could learn their identities.
Caitlin is told there were no signs of anyone else being at the apartment. Caitlin starts wondering if she was hallucinating but then tells the detective she can always tell when she is hallucinating.
Caitlin does her own research on Douglas and finds that he was a philanthropist who shared the same birthday as her on August 27th. She thinks all of this and the fact that Nathan and Douglas died at the same time, 9:12, is a sign.
She decides that the other witnesses must have seen signs too.
Meanwhile, Lucas has gone on TV to give away the names of all the witnesses. Apparently, in the whole city, these people are the only ones with the same names and people automatically know what they look like.
Curt’s wife realizes he’s cheated on her and leaves him. Althea has a woman spit on her in the streets.
Caitlin goes to see Curt who is already down because his wife left him. She asks whether he has seen Douglas and he gives her a weird look before telling her to get lost. Caitlin leaves and minutes later Curt is attacked. He’s found dead and the detective wonders if Caitlin has anything to do with it.
Caitlin keeps seeing and hearing verses and decides to go to church. Her boyfriend accompanies her in spite of his reluctance to go there.
She sees Lucas there and gets nervous. Then when she sees Douglas, she makes a scene big enough for Lucas to see her.
He follows her outside and Josh punches him and tells him he’s made his girlfriend’s life miserable. Lucas doesn’t hit back and barely rubs his jaw after the punch. He gets over it quickly and pretends Josh doesn’t exist. In fact, even Caitlin ignores him at that point. Josh is just standing there being invisible while Lucas and Caitlin talk.
Lucas says he also sees Douglas and senses him. Caitlin and he make plans to meet later to discuss their ghost stories.
Caitlin goes to meet with him and tells him the reason she didn’t help his brother because of her traumatic incident. Lucas sympathizes with her then tells her about his research on karma. She sees a figure in the article that says figure 27. Caitlin feels she’s seeing that number everywhere.
Lucas asks if the others have seen anything unusual. Caitlin thinks it’s a good idea to ask them. Is it? Didn’t she just come up with the same thought some a few scenes ago and went to see Curt?
She calls a meeting with the other witnesses. How she found their number, who knows? And why were they willing to meet her, again who knows? Or was Caitlin treating them at the cafe? Free food? Yes, we will be there soon.
Maria is in a bad mood because she lost her boyfriend. Tony doesn’t care. Althea sympathizes with Caitlin but none of them remembers anything unusual.
They all leave and Caitlin goes back home to have a fight with her boyfriend about not caring enough or something. He fumbles around and tells her to pick safety over guilt. She tells him if he can’t help her he needs to get out of her way. Josh does exactly that and doesn’t bother her in the next few scenes.
Caitlin remembers seeing the attacker holding a red medallion and tells that to the detective. She receives a call from Maria to come to her salon as she remembered something important from that day that she can’t say over the phone for some reason. Caitlin also wants an excuse to go out in the middle of the night and doesn’t ask her to say whatever it is on the phone.
Of course, when she goes there, the time on the clock is stuck at 9:12. Maria is dead with a gunshot to her head.
Caitlin screams. The detective wonders why she’s always there where there are murders. Caitlin doesn’t know what to say.
Later, the detective calls her to see a body at the morgue. She identifies him as the attacker. They think it is all over but Caitlin is certain that the signs she’s seeing mean something.
DON'T LOOK BACK/ GOOD SAMARITAN Ending Explained with Spoilers!
Her intuitions come true and Caitlin is kidnapped. She awakens in an abandoned building and finds Tony already dead. Athena is barely alive. Caitlin turns to find Lucas behind her who has come with a hare-brained scheme to frame Caitlin for the murders. If that was his plan, why not kill Althea too? Frame both murders on her? Instead, he wants to kill Althea in front of Caitlin for some reason.
But Althea has found an empty injection near her, one that was probably used on her to make her unconscious. She stabs Lucas with it while Caitlin runs around the abandoned house for a couple of minutes before she finally tosses Lucas out the window.
The police come and even though Caitlin’s fingerprints are on the gun used to kill Maria and Tony, they immediately sympathize with Caitlin. Of course, it would take some time for the forensic reports to come but no one even suspects Caitlin or killing Tony and injuring Lucas. The police investigation is shoddy here. The detective comes to laud Caitlin for being tough.
In the last scene, Lucas is paralyzed and laying in the hospital. Althea comes over to tell her own story of being homeless once upon a time and how Douglas took advantage of her at the shelter. She paid the attacker 200 bucks to beat him up and didn’t mean for Douglas to die.
Great plan there. So was she the one who killed the attacker or did he really die of a drug overdose?
Althea ends the scene talking about karma. So she paid the attacker who accidentally beat Douglas to death. Because of that, she got spat on by the woman on the street. Is that karma as well?
Lucas was simply behaving as a vigilante who wanted to avenge his brother’s death and thought if the bystanders helped his brother wouldn’t have died. He took on the role of karma when he should have just stood aside and let Karma do its own job.
The movie was completely plot hole-ridden in the second half. There was a lack of reasoning for every character’s actions.
Too bad because this was actually a good concept with mediocre execution.
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