Review of Tell No One (2006) by Jim H — 03 Feb 2011

After skinny-dipping with his wife, a man wakes to find himself beaten and her dead. Eight years later he receives anonymous footage of her looking directly at the camera in a train station. As mounting evidence lead the police to pursue him for the murder, he must fight to find the truth about her death - if she is even dead - in this superbly constructed thriller.

As I watch many American thrillers, I notice that most writers and directors emphasize either the action sequences or the intrigue. And virtually every night we're inundated with police procedurals like CSI and Cold Case. Tell No One succeeds because it is able to combine the best of both worlds. The primary action sequence - a chase scene - actually succeeds in compelling our interest because we care about the outcome. In Salt, for example, we don't really care about the initial chase sequence because we know that she's going to get away; she has to otherwise the film won't continue. But that's not the case here. Thus, there is built-in suspense as we wonder about the outcome.

Additionally, in most thrillers when we meet the "bad" guy, the mystery is over. But here, information is given so sparingly and efficiently that the final reveal actually has some effect. Tell No One succeeds in keeping the characters ahead of us without leaving us in the dark. Essentially, we actually get to watch smart people solve the mystery.

Overall, Tell No One is a thoroughly engrossing thriller that is almost perfectly constructed.