Review of The Tall Man (2012) by Manu G — 07 Oct 2012

In a small town in Washington State, children are being abducted by a being known as "The Tall Man." The town is extremely poor since the mines closed, and no one outside the small town seems to care.

The local doctor, Julia Denning (Jessica Biel), tries to keep the peace in the town, but when her own child is abducted by the Tall Man, she'll stop at nothing to get him - and the other children - back.

That's the basic premise of the film located on the DVD, but in reality it's highly misleading. To fully explain the film, however, would give away pretty much the whole point of the film, so if you want to see it, don't read any further.

It turns out that the Tall Man is Julia's husband, whom everyone in the town thought was long dead. The two have been working together to abduct children they feel live in impoverished conditions and give them to rich families so the children can grow up with everything they want. The child Julia has is actually one of the abducted children she stole, and the child's real mother is the one who abducted him back.

Julia gets arrested and tells the police that she killed the children so no one would search for them, and chooses to spend the rest of her life in jail so no one will know the real truth.

While I can appreciate the turn in the film, it was done in such a sloppy way that it didn't seem to make sense. It was extremely long and dull, and the only decent thing about the film is the questions it raises in the end - is it better for a child to be taken from a loving (but poor) family and given to a loving (and rich) family?