Movie Review: Lou

The film starts with a mother, Hannah, playing hide-and-seek with her young daughter, Vee, outside their home. Lou, the landlady and loner living with her dog Jax, stops by to say the rent is due the next day. While in the village buying some supplies, Lou talks to the sheriff about her arthritis. He tells her a copper bracelet could help her condition.

Expecting a large storm, Chris, Hannah’s male friend, offers to bring supplies. He picks up a hitchhiker, who ends up killing him in his van. The hitchhiker cuts power to Hannah’s home, and, while she is outside trying to restore power, he kidnaps Vee and flees with her on foot. Hannah runs to Lou’s house, interrupts her suicide attempt, and tells her Vee is missing. Lou’s truck blows up due to a bomb set by the hitchhiker. Hannah and Lou set off tracking him and Vee into the night during the storm.

Hannah knows who took her daughter—her ex-husband Phillip (Logan Marshall-Green). It’s revealed that Phillip was not just an abusive husband to Hannah but faked his own death so he could get to his daughter under the cover of being presumed dead. Phillip is not your ordinary sociopath—he was a special forces soldier, and he even brought along a couple of his buddies to help with the kidnapping. All of them underestimated Lou. Of course.

Once Lou and Hannah get out into the torrential rain, “Lou” should have had momentum as a survival thriller. And there’s a great action scene in a cabin wherein the title character unleashes her training on a couple of dudes who don’t see it coming. With some tight fight choreography that Janney completely sells, I was ready for the film to build from there.

Go watch the full movie for a really good movie with twists you couldn’t see coming. Enjoy.