Sometimes, I wonder if justice is blind or if it is just oblivious. In recent history, Ethan Couch received a lenient sentence after recklessly mowing down several innocent victims while intoxicated on liquor and affluenza. The former Stanford swimmer, Brock Turner received only a six month sentence after sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.[i] Shortly thereafter, Indiana University frat boy John Enochs escaped two counts of felony rape with a year of probation while David Becker received two years of probation for sexually assaulting two 18 year old girls. What are the repercussions of these lenient sentences? When did it become more important to protect a perpetrator from being branded a sexual offender than to ensure justice? How is it that a judge and/or jury came to worry more about the hopeful college experience of a young college-bound Massachusetts boy over his two 18-year-old victims? You might ask, what does this have to do with the film, Don’t Breathe (2016)…I say everything.

In the wake of national outrage after these trials, Don’t Breathe brings light to what we view as justice and who is a deserving victim. By definition, a victim is “a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action”.[ii] However, in the eyes of a subjective public, being a victim of a crime does not concretely translate into victimhood as we see in Fede Alvarez’s film, Don’t Breathe. Read more