Betray: Thirst – Ultimately a frustrating experience

Director: Jaron Lockridge
Cast: Kenon Walker, Bre Hassan, Everett Anderson, Sherika Woodard, Jai Johnson, Michael Gordon III
Running time: 111 mins

Written and directed by Jaron Lockridge (The Stix), Betray: Thirst is an indirect sequel to 2023’s Betray, which had thematic similarities, but a completely different cast of characters. As such, the basic premise of the film is tried-and-tested erotic thriller material, but it’s badly let down by a lacklustre script and some bafflingly low-grade filmmaking.

The story centres on Jamal Wiggins (Kenon Walker), a successful lawyer in the law firm he founded with his best friend, Darren Tate (Lockridge’s frequent collaborator Everett Anderson, who previously starred in The Stix). At home, however, Jamal’s life is less than perfect – though he loves Shavonne (Jai Johnson), their marriage has become sexless after 15 years, despite his best efforts, and it’s driving him to distraction.

Events take a sudden turn when Jamal takes the case of Jada Campbell (Bre Hassan), whose violent and abusive husband Xavier (Michael Gordon III) is in a wheelchair, following a serious accident. When Jada shows interest in Jamal, he succumbs to temptation and they begin an affair.

However, when Jamal gets cold feet and tries to end the relationship, Jada doesn’t take the rejection lightly and begins showing up at his office, and sending him constant videos and messages. As things escalate, Jamal begins to realise that the breaching of this particular professional boundary might turn out to have life-changing consequences.

The most frustrating element of the film is that there is so much wasted potential here, whether it’s the missed opportunity to say something interesting about an under-explored topic like sexless marriage, the failure to deliver genuine thrills, or a series of little things, like set-ups for funny moments that the script just squanders.

To that end, the dialogue is disappointingly dull throughout, while scenes that seem like they’re going somewhere interesting just fall painfully flat. In fairness, some effort has clearly been made to spice up Everett Anderson’s dialogue, but he’s either ad-libbing to a point where he visibly baffles his co-stars, or it’s just incomprehensible rambling – at any rate, it doesn’t generate the intended laughs.

On paper, this should have been a no-brainer, as it’s a fairly standard Fatal Attraction-style erotic thriller scenario, with a couple of interesting angles in terms of audience sympathy. Indeed, the film’s boldest move in that regard is making Xavier the least sympathetic character, not something you see very often with portrayals of disabled characters.

The main problem is that the script lacks the courage of its convictions – the sexless marriage is very much at the heart of Jamal’s decision to cheat, but he never ends up having that conversation with Shavonne. And some of the script decisions are jaw-droppingly misguided, particularly with regard to the eventual fate of Hassan’s character.

Sadly, the film’s problems don’t end there. For one thing, the camerawork is appalling – Lockridge serves as his own cinematographer and it wasn’t worth the money he presumably saved in doing so – while all the other basic elements of filmmaking, such as blocking, lighting, framing, editing, set design and sound, are so poor that they make the film look and feel like it was made for a couple of hundred dollars.

The strongest element of the film is Bre Hassan’s performance as Jada – she generates strong chemistry with Walker (not an easy task) and convincingly pulls off both the seduction sequences and her character’s general desperation and vulnerability. However, she’s less convincing once the film veers into psycho ex mode, and the script is largely to blame for that.

In short, this is ultimately a frustrating experience, since it squanders so much of its own potential and doesn’t really seem to know which story it wants to tell. It also ends up feeling like a clumsily executed cautionary tale about the consequences of sexless marriage, rather than addressing the issue in a meaningful manner.

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