Movie Review: Tell No One
Sep 27th, 2010 by admin
Director: Guillaume Canet
Genre: Thriller/Drama/Crime/Mystery
Year: 2006
Canet has hit the right note here, setting up what looks like might be a fun thriller to watch and giving us instead a mystery gem. How it is that it slipped under the radar so easily is beyond me, but it was made in 2006, a particularly good year for movies so, perhaps that is to blame.
This is a crime thriller of the sort that has enough twists to keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time, opening up with a couple, Alex and Margot, going to the lake in their property, talking and swimming for a while, before an argument sparks off and Margot takes off to check on the dog. Margot is then suddenly and unexpectedly attacked and killed.
A few years later, the matter seems to be a part of the distant past, even if Alex and Margot’s mother seem to have a strange annual ritual where they continue to get together on the anniversary of Margot’s death. However, when Alex suddenly receives an e-mail pointing to an inside matter that only he and Margot knew about and with enough evidence to prove that his former wife might still be alive, Alex’s world turns upside down. He is very quickly forced to try to uncover the mystery before the police, who are suddenly suspicious of him again as a murderer when two more bodies are found dead in the property.
Exciting to watch, this film truly can be described as a nail-biter with a rather satisfactory ending that puts everything together cleverly. Studded with mystery, intrigue and some action this is a film that you must watch!
Rating: 
Comments: Brief nudity, violence and language. French with English subtitles.
Epic. There is really no other word to describe this film and upon watching it you will easily see why this film is a classic and why it has been so influential over time. 7 Samurai tells the story of a village under the oppression of former samurai, turned bandits, who now make a living pillaging the farmer’s villages and taking their sustenance, for their benefit and future trading purposes. Aware that a gang of bandits aims to raid their village by the time the rice is harvested, the farmers come to the desperate decision of hiring samurai to protect their village and stand up to the atrocities committed by the bandits – who often will take more than rice and food.
Made in 1954, you can expect some of the older techniques both in cinematography and editing which are nevertheless effective. The movie is also in Japanese which demands the reading of subtitles in a film that is well over three hours long and requires an intermission. While this film might be a bit too much for the casual watcher, any avid film lover or person with appreciation for classical film should find this one an absolute gem and very much worth the watch, with themes that are applicable across time and in various settings, a good reason why The Magnificent 7, a western based entirely on this film, was so successful.
For whatever intrinsic reason, I am not a huge fan of Amy Adams. That could be that the first role I ever saw her in was as Giselle on Enchanted. In the past, however, she has proven to be a bit more versatile than I gave her credit for. Her role in Doubt was very decent and her role in this particular film definitely establishes that she is in fact a rather good actress.
Given the grim theme, cleaning crime scenes, this film is surprisingly cheerful. It is not all sunshine and roses, as the title might imply, however. There is plenty of problems in the Lorkowski household and there are trying moments that test the familial bonds, all of which serves to bring greater interest to the film than your typical Hollywood movie. On the other hand, the movie does perhaps try to reach out in too many directions and brings in content that is a bit unnecessary. It does not ruin the film, but does add a couple of elements that feel a bit cheesy in contrast to everything else. Thankfully, these moments are sparse.
One of those novels you often hear about and know you should read and seem to never get around to reading it. I finally did get to it, at the beginning of a brief literary three-leg run through dystopian futures of which this was the first.
If you are familiar with Mr. Jarmush’s work, then you already know you will be walking off the beaten path. Rarely does he fall in line with what is normally accepted in Hollywood as standard and more often than not he focuses on characters rather than actual plots. There is a certain signature to his work that is almost palpable and seems to saturate his films entirely. Some might find that appealing; the majority–I venture to guess–will not. Jarmush demands patience, encourages an eye for detail and often pushes symbolism into the screen.
I find myself in the middle of a tug of war in this film, because the idea of a Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé; Casino Royale, Manderlay) guiding himself through Spain, receiving enigmatic, coded instructions inside match boxes from anomalous individuals is very very intriguing to me. The Lone Man, a very disciplined man brings to mind Ghost Dog, from Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. There is that same intensity, that alienation, that quirkiness to the character who may not say much but is just as readable to the audience–if not better–than one giving a monologue. Lone Man’s mission, is given to him by a Creole and routed by French, his translator. From the beginning, one gets a taste of the humor that seems to subtly populate Jarmush movies. Brief instructions, one match box, and the hunt is on.
The entire movie is really a series of encounters, all of them staring with the same assertive questions that ensures each of the other seedy characters–played by the likes of Gael Garcia Bernal, Paz de la Huerta, Tilda Swinton and John Hurt, among others–that Lone Man does not, in fact speak Spanish. Why this is relevant? Well, that is where the film becomes problematic. The use of symbolism in this film is so heavy that at the end of the film, which seems rather simplistic considering the process it took Lone Man to get to that point, one gets the idea that nothing makes sense. While I am always one to encourage the use of symbolism to give substance to a story, in this case everything has been abstracted to such an extent that it is entirely unclear what is is we have watch and leaves you with the feeling that you have just witnessed an inside joke and Jarmush is the only one laughing.
It is a dichotomy strong enough to split me down the middle. On the one hand we have beautiful cinematography, good acting, very interesting characters coming together for what turns out to be on the other hand: not much or a rather generalized view of the workings of the world. If the point of this film is the former, then this movie is only worth the accumulation of its artistic merit (which is considerable), if it is the latter, then it is almost a slap-in-the-face ending considering the idiosyncrasies involved for most people.
A slice of life film written and directed by Ramin Bahrani, Man Push Cart tells the story of Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi; Chop Shop), a former Pakistani rock star now down on his luck. His day starts at three in the morning, dragging through the streets of New York the push cart from which he sells coffee, bagels and doughnuts. The film focuses on a handful of nights, giving us a glimpse on Ahmad’s difficult life, struggling to make enough money to finish paying off the cart and improve his life, for himself and the son that has been for all intents and purposes been taken away from him by his in-laws.
There is something about the way that Ahmad and Leticia work together to make their characters realistic, dynamic and believable, which is truly important in a film such as this. Unfortunately, some of the supporting cast do not carry their weight quite as well, which does lower the bar a bit. Nevertheless, the directing is strong, the cinematography is gripping and the theme is subtly clutching, which makes this film a must see if you are OK with low key drama’s with a strong independent feel.
My interest in this particular movie was entirely accidental. Cube was the first of Natali’s works I ever watched and while I found it to be engrossing and entertaining, I never really searched for much of his work after that. I do own that particular film and have enjoyed revisiting it, but until Splice came out recently, I had all but completely forgotten then name.
With plenty of twists and plot turns–some predictable, others not so much–Cypher delivers an high quality sci-fi which has you wondering from beginning to end. It has a satisfactory ending that might be perhaps a bit cliche but certainly an audience-pleaser. There is, however, a certain aspect of this film that led me to question it’s writing. Various lines are delivered weakly and that could even be credited to flaws on directing or bad writing. The fact that the plot itself, however, provides some answers as to why those lines might have been delivered the way they do, makes it difficult to determine if the script was poorly written, or if in fact the very lines that seem not quite believable are that way for a specific reason. I can see how this could become a valid debate, but in the grand scheme of things, this movie is not a ground shaker. It is fun, yes, it is enjoyable, but it is not going to change your life.
The Predators are back, and this time I do not feel like punting them back to their twisted little planet! Cause–let’s be honest–AVP and AVP 2 were like pushing your forehead to a nail gun and squeezing the trigger. Predator 2 was not that good either but I am such an avid Predator fan that I was willing to look past pretty much everything. At the core, however, Predator will always be a man’s guilty pleasure. Its an alien and it hunts humans for sport. Nothing more exciting than to see the roles reversed and watch us be the hunted. If you have seen Predator and you enjoyed it, this movie will not disappoint. No predator film will ever be an Academy Award recipient, of that I am sure and after watching this movie, I still hold to that statement. But if we are able to look past the expectations a good film must overcome and see it for what it is–a fun, sci-fi, action, summer block buster–then we are golden.
While it might satisfy the action sweet tooth, you should go into Predators knowing it is not perfect. There are some plot choices that were a bit questionable and without going into spoilers, I was not very pleased with the unnecessarily complicated direction in which they took the character of Edwin. There are moments that make you wonder why certain things were not realized a bit earlier–highly trained killers that they are. There is also a ‘pregnant woman’ moment. Remember the second movie, where the Predator spares Maria Conchita Alonzo’s life because she is pregnant? It was a moment that showed the honor the Predators put into the hunt. This movie has such a moment when one of the hunters faces Hanzo on the Yakuza assassin’s own terms rather than his own and while some people might roll an eye at it, I thought it was once again representative of the type of hunters that the Predators are. There is also a few hints tossed into the different types of Predators out there and though they only mention two types–the warriors and the hunters–and pits them against each other (something I was unaware of in the original material but which might be accurate) there is certainly room here for a sequel.
For whatever reason, after seeing this film it was clear to me that the story lacked substance, or rather…build up. It was an interesting story that overall still seemed bland and lacked any form of climax, and yet, I still felt the desire to watch it all the way through the end, which does speak to what this film does right.