Most films lose the viewer between the twenty and the fifty second mark. Not at the start, where curiosity carries them, and not at the end, where they are already committed.

The middle drags because it is where explanation lives. The setup was a promise, the payoff is a proof, and the middle is where a nervous edit tries to justify both.

Cut the justification. If a shot exists to explain rather than to advance, it is a caption, not a scene. Move it to the subtitle track or lose it.

Then shorten every hold by six frames. Nothing about the story changes. The film breathes anyway.