Tell (2012) Reviews

• An Unbiased Review

  kcolasacco2012-06-23

  First of all, you need to realize that when I give something a 5/10, I'm saying that it's perfectly average. Many people consider a 5 to be a poor score but I don't. I consider it to be neither good or bad along the bell curve. There are around 50 or fewer movies in the history of filmmaking that I'd give a 10 and only around 100 or so that I'd give a 9 which will hopefully put things into perspective. I actually wish that more people thought like that. 5 is average. It's tempting to consider this a first effort from Ryan Connolly and his team and while it is, in a sense, it's also not. Ryan is a very experienced writer and director when it comes to working with no budget and has a pretty fair following with his YouTube channel, Film Riot (which by the way, is a good place for aspiring filmmakers to learn). Throw in years of film school and it's not exactly as if this is a total noob effort. That's a good thing though because I try not to make that distinction when I'm doing a review. I review without prejudice regarding budget or experience. It could be $200 mil or $1,000 as I believe Tell was. (which really puts the 5 into an even better perspective) Ryan Connolly is a pretty good writer with a good sense of timing. I would have preferred to see something more original from him over a retelling of The Tell Tale Heart. So now when you're rating the script, I'm stuck with having to rate a story that's a great original tale, but the problem is, this is simply a story that's already been done. The original was fantastic. However, this is more like a copy from a xerox machine, it's never going to be as good. The acting was average (remember what I'm comparing it to) which bodes well for those who were in it. I wasn't pulled out of the story because of shoddy acting. That's also a testament to the director and his ability to get performances which may have been beyond the scope of what the actors had previously been able to do. Good job for a first effort. The way Connolly uses lighting and camera angles to set moods for the shots was very good and on par with many of Hollywood's directors. Especially when you consider that he did not have the money to build sets to the specs of the shots that he wanted. I've always felt that this is a strong suit of his and I'd like to see what he could do with a bigger budget. The most glaring problem for me is that I felt as if some of the shots ran too long and should have been either removed in editing or made shorter. Using a scene from the beginning as an example, the main character is moving from inside the house out to his car and back again. The viewer doesn't need to see the actor go to the door, open the handle, close the door, walk to the car, open doors, close doors, walk back to the house, open the door... Similar situations play out throughout the entirety of the film which slowed the pace too much and if anything, left me bored, searching to forward into areas of more suspense. Overall, I say it was a good "first" effort but there are some glaring issues that I think could have made it better. The scores are going to be artificially high as the fan base gives it scores that should be reserved for the best films in the history of cinema but that's to be expected. I still think that this was a solid debut that should draw some needed attention in his direction and hopefully set Triune Films up for a successful career.

• A really fun ride!

  seantudor-12012-06-19

  I'm a huge fan of Ryan's work on Youtube and I was super excited to see this movie since I watched it being made through all his shows. I was not disappointed! This movie is really scary and well put together. The budget might have been lower budget than some movies but you couldn't "tell" it. The quality was phenomenal and the film making superb. Some of the acting gets a little stiff at times but all in all this is a great ride! Ryan is a quality Director that will be making plenty of waves down the road. I look forward to following his career and saying, "Hey! I was there when he was just a wee little film guy with a YouTube show! He was a funny little man with a vision! Highly recommended!

• The beginning of something good...

  tuberjonas2012-06-19

  The first thing I want to say is that I might be a little "prejudiced" about this movie, because I am a real fan of the FilmRiot you-tube show and I'm watching it for a really long time. I'm really impressed about this movie Tell, they created. It has a fantastic script (my opinion) and it's very well acted. I think the cruel storyline really succeeded along with the background music. But you won't lose any sympathetic for the main character, even after all his murders. I don't want to say too much about this movie, you have to watch it for yourself.... which can't be a problem since it's free to watch! The You-tube broadcasts quite exploded in popularity the last few years. The, not too long, free to watch movies, are a good way of wasting time for almost every one. This community has grown so much, that the quality is increasing to a high level. It's showing us you don't need a Hollywood budget to make a good film. The internet is really competing against the high budget films in cinema's and on DVD's. Projects like Tell, witch are almost getting to the "cinema" quality, will make "buying" films superfluous. I think projects like Tell, can really gain popularity in the future. People are looking more and more for ways to watch films cheap, like Netflix or even illegally downloading them. Hopefully this will be our future. At least TELL is one step in the right direction...

• Very suspenseful

  Floh-Ruehle2012-06-24

  First of all: This movie has been done on a very low budget. This hardly ever shows and I rated it like I would rate any other Hollywood-backed movie on IMDb, which might almost be a little unfair. Still, I have to give this movie high praises. It has a very simple story yet easily keeps you entangled for over 30 minutes (a very long runtime for a short-film). The story is based on "The tell-tale heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. The movie itself shortens it even further. It contains very little dialog and can be considered more of a mood piece. From the very beginning, the music, acting and cinematography keep the viewer at the edge of his seat and deliver suspense in an amazing yet not obvious way. The main character Taylor (Todd Bruno) carries the movie brilliantly, without his outstanding performance it would not have been the same. The same way would a lesser composer or cinematographer have left this movie boring and lifeless. As it is, this movie is very close to a perfect thriller and I can recommend it to anyone. Some minor things that bugged me: All the main actresses were not as convincing as I had hoped. There were some very slight focus issues at times. In very few places, I would have liked the score to be a little more quiet or non-present, to release the tension for just a second. Over all, I am very pleased with the movie and found it entertaining at least and brilliant at best. In comparison to big commercial films, I am rating it at 8/10 stars. For a very low budget film, I would easily give 10/10.

• I don't give out 8s, 9s or 10s that easy.

  joseg31922012-07-10

  Before I go into my review I want to say that I completely understand what the film is about. It's about a guy who in the heat of the moment kills his girlfriend by "accident" and as a result his conscience is making him lose his grip on reality. My problem with the movie has to do a lot with the opening scene. The film starts off in a very confusing manner. A couple is arguing, and it's the girl who's asking the guy what his frustration is about. So we understand that he's frustrated with their relationship, yet he won't say what exactly his frustration stems from. The girl is frustrated at the guy because he doesn't spend time with her, a point to which the guy has no real response to. At first I thought maybe he's cheating on her, but that can't be because he too is frustrated with their relationship. A cheater will usually try to keep cool and not raise any suspicions or try to sabotage one relationship because it could ruin the other. So the whole time I'm thinking, what is so secretive that he can't tell her? He can't be a professional assassin because it becomes very apparent he can't deal with the pressure of murdering someone. So what is so secretive that he can't tell her "I'm upset about this", like a real couple would do? What is so secretive that it leads to a massive argument that leads in someone's death. If arguing has been a reoccurring problem like it's suggested, why not break up at this point? The reason this is done in such an illogical fashion, is that if the argument is settled like adults, the movie has no lift off and thus the murder doesn't happen. The clunky delivery of the lines by the actors makes it very apparent that the actors themselves don't know what their characters are fighting about and neither did the writer. The actors don't know of any argument between a couple in which the problem is not put out there, and so they are having a hard time getting into it or understanding the material. And if it is put out there then the audience would not find it a plausible reason to kill her, for this reason it is left a mystery. To the writer this was just a small detail to push the story along and get to the "good stuff". To top it all off the director tries to cover his tracks and tries to bring some seriousness to this flawed scene by filming it in "this is how you know the scene is serious" shot (a.k.a. the close up shot) and also by doing the reality TV hand-held style to make it seem as if this argument is real. Come on Ryan have some guts, do something unexpected, film it on a flat extreme long shot or something I haven't seen. Starting a film with two characters we know nothing about arguing tells us nothing except that they are frustrated. Setting up the scene as something as simple as "I know you're cheating on me" would of sufficed, but this wouldn't lead to a murder it would lead to a break up. In fact, no normal couple argument would ever lead to a murder. The only way it can happen, is if you introduce the male character before the argument as a mentally unstable and frustrated with life character. Maybe he's taken a beating at work, maybe he has no friends, he was released from a mental institution not too far back, he wants to claim a life insurance after her death (a classic), etc. or a combination of multiple things. If the main character is someone who balls up his emotions, and has been building up this anger at his girlfriend or at life for this really long time then show us that. Show us the evolution from someone calm, into an unhappy boyfriend, and then a violently explosive person. This is what I mean by character depth, we know nothing else about these characters except that they are fighting. I have a feeling that this is what Ryan was going for but I shouldn't have to go from hypothetical to hypothetical to arrive at a plausible solution. If you wanted to make a psychological thriller about a man's guilty conscience a little easier, make it about the guy who hits a stranger while driving. Set up as a nice guy with bad luck. I'm sorry I just couldn't get over the issues of the first 5 minutes. On top of that all the actresses were bad in this film, and perhaps miscast because they all look like 20 year old models (except the officer), the lead actually looks the part of a psycho in his late 30s. In fact he is the best thing to happen to this film, his performance takes over the film after that clunky mess in the beginning and gives life to the film. The film lacked plot points though, it did well in representing the main character's internal conflict but I saw the officer coming in and being killed. The movie could of used more gore as well, kind of like Japanese films (I thought the girl's face should of been smashed in or something). Overall the movie was okay. A good score to go along and a good representation of a man losing his grip on reality. I felt some of the shots were conventional or expected for a thriller. The film needed normal shots, shots of before the murder occurs to get the full fear effects when he commits the murder.