Review of Tell (2014) by Kane S — 08 Dec 2014

I liked this movie. It's fun, it doesn't take itself too seriously but its humour was intelligent enough to keep me interested and engaged. The characters fulfil what we expect from the genre but without coming across as cliches. Ethan Tell (Milo Ventimiglia) really does feel like an unlucky sod who just can't seem to catch a break. But he's a likeable guy. He doesn't want to screw people over, steal, kill, etc, but it's kind of all he really knows how to do. He's never had that better life that most people in middle class America seem to have, at least on the surface. The wife, the kids, the house with the white picket fence. In a moving part of the film (trying not to give anything away here), he laments the direction his life has taken.

And that is where TELL finds its emotional core: yes, this is a film about a bank heist and a bunch of dubious, nefarious and morally challenged characters clamouring to get the money (Jason Lee as "Ray" and Alan Tudyk as a corrupt detective especially shine), but that's really only plot surface stuff. Deep down, this is a film about the regrets we have when we see our lives going one way and they go another. It's that unpredictability of life, those things that are out of our control. Having said all this, the film still delivers laughs and memorable moments. For a small, indie movie, director J.M.R. Luna has crafted a piece of entertainment that should satisfy the more conventional cinema-goers while also offering the thought-provoking nature, purposeful pacing and endearing indie-film traits that we love about smaller movies with big hearts (when the studios seem to only care about dizzying us with fast camera work, visual effects and loud noise). I can see Luna graduating to the realm of the Guy Ritchies or Matthew Vaughns but for now, this is an accomplished and confident directorial debut that shows promise of things to come.