Tell

Loved it. Thought the script and acting were above average and enjoyed the characters.

Before I get to my review, I want to point out that every single Hate-It "review" on this page was posted by a 1-movie reviewer. There are currently 12. When I realized this, I immediately had to watch the movie because any movie that caused someone to create 12 bogus IMDb accounts to slam it deserves to be watched, especially when this sad person is using all his sock puppet accounts to thumbs-down all other reviews. "Tell" is a bizarre experience that will probably confuse, if not irritate, anyone who's expecting a typical crime thriller. This is because it incorporates both gritty drama & outlandish deadpan humor in equal quantities, and that may throw you off, but ultimately if you just go along for the ride and expect anything, then you might really enjoy this flick. If you've seen the 1997 flick "Suicide Kings" with Christopher Walken, then you know what I'm talking about. "Suicide Kings" (itself received somewhat poorly by critics) is a masterpiece of tense, gritty drama and awesome deadpan humor in equal portions. This strategy is a gamble because most audiences are expecting either drama or comedy, but nothing straight up the middle. "Tell" begins with an opening scene that is instantly, awkwardly funny as we see two bizarrely dressed clowns (one of them unapologetically sporting a bad 80s Don Johnson look) standing in the middle of a grocery aisle, tensely awaiting some sort of illegal transaction. But the scene abrubtly shifts to serious when blood starts flying. The entire film is like that: it flirts with comedy--not outright punchline gags but a really funny sort of satirical dark humor--but then it turns you around and dunks you in a tense, violent, disturbing story of crime and betrayal. In that regard you could say "Tell" is a grandchild of the Tarantino "Pulp Fiction" genre, except that Tarantino is more solidly rooted on the drama/violence side, whereas "Tell" (like "Suicide Kings") is slightly closer to comedy. I purposely waited to tell you about the plot because the plot isn't as important as the delivery. Tell (Milo Ventimiglia) is a small time criminal who somehow manages to grab the haul of a big time bank heist. Supposedly he stashes it somewhere (although we can't be sure), and years later everyone is after Tell to get the loot. When I say "everyone" I'm referring to 2 psycho cops, 1 psycho brother-in-law, and 1 psycho wife. The psycho brother-in-law and psycho wife are brilliantly played by Jason Lee (Dave in "Alvin and the Chipmunks" if you can believe it) and Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck in "Battlestar Galactica"). These 2 roles are critical because they provide the great deadpan humor in this story. They are not likeable characters at all; we see that they are self-serving, loathsome back stabbers who are just after the money. But even so, ya gotta love 'em because they are sooo batsnot cray cray. They will stop at nothing to coerce, intimidate, manipulate, or outright torture Tell into divulging the secret, but at the same time they are the only friends he's got. If you can grasp this bizarre relationship, I guarantee you'll love the flick. A note for fans of Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica: no, her role is *nothing* like Starbuck, but that's all the more reason for you to check out this movie to see how versatile she is, playing a despicable gold-digger whom you love to hate. "Tell" is a surreal & genre defining experience that shouldn't be missed if you enjoy watching atypical crime dramas. As I mentioned, check out "Suicide Kings" if you enjoy this kind of dark humor. Another one in this style is "Poker Night" with Ron Perlman. There aren't many films like this, so enjoy em when you can find em.

So I just downloaded this movie last night (for free thank god) because I have literally seen every other movie out there. What a complete ClusterF this was. The film was made in 2014 when Jason Lee's career had basically already evaporated but even still, dude, did you read the script or meet with the film student who directed this beforehand? Jason looked so disinterested on screen that it was distracting. He must've really needed ten thousand dollars at the time. Katie Sackhoff wasn't much better. Decent to look at but came across as apathetic. Cheesy one-liners, low production values, and a director with no clue had me rolling my eyes for an hour and a half.

Has to be the absolute worst movie I have seen in a long long long time! Writing blew, the story is so dumb and unoriginal, dialogue that is not believable or witty or clever. It story starts out bad and gets worse from there. The acting is terrible, we're talking so terrible that you're consciously thinking about how terrible it is and not following or paying attention to much else except the terrible dialogue that they're uttering. Whoever the clown was who directed this pos is clueless. When I looked up to see what he had previously done it didn't surprise me that he's a glorified camera assistant, gaffer etc. I got some news for you Mr. Wannabe director, you suck! You have no idea what you're doing or how to direct actors. Go back to fetching light bulbs out of a grip truck. What producer in his right mind would spend a penny of his money or a second of his time producing BS like this film? Apparently a bunch of dummies did. You people make Roger Corman look like a genius auteur. I hope you make better choices in picking spouses/partners than you do picking films to make cause you ain't so good at that. Gimme my money back!!!!!!!!

A complete and utter waste of time from the opening frame to the closing credits! The dopes who made this are clueless. Why would anybody with any sensibilities to the advancement of humanity make this? This movie doesn't even deserve a review, but I am so disgusted that I wasted my time watching it that I want to try and save others time and money. The story (if you can even call it that) is about a small time crook who makes a huge score when he steals a million bucks. His life falls apart when he must prevent his partner, his wife, his parole officer, and two dishonest detectives from stealing it from him. Sound familiar? This unoriginal, contrived tale that you've seen done a billion times before is so amateurishly written that you question who in their right mind read this and actually wanted to make it. The acting, even though there are a few recognizable B faces in it, was shockingly bad. Why? Probably because the direction is just plain flat. You have to wonder if the actors were directing themselves? If I could rate this zero stars, I would have.

I liked this movie because it was a good chance to see a cast of journey men actors work their craft. Almost every character you've seen before and wanted to see more. T. Williams script was inventive and solid. The pacing was good, it kept your attention throughout the movie. There were some plot twists that I didn't expect. Now that I think of it, I just enjoyed the movie without sitting in my seat saying to myself "oh, now he's going to find out..." I was in it for the escape and that's what I got. As a slight negative, I would have liked to see the character of the wife have a little more depth. When it was required of the actress, it was found wanting. I've see lots of movies with "critics awards" not be half as entertaining. It was a good Saturday afternoon movie.

Don't know where to even begin other than I wish I would have read some of the reviews before I decided to rent this thing. The overall story was extremely predictable, I was never at the edge of my seat. I thought it was poorly directed in so much that it didn't build tension, it didn't develop the characters to create any empathy with any of them, and the whole damn thing felt a bit amateurish. The acting was average overall. If you're even contemplating this as a dumb-but-fun action film -- don't. There's a few minutes of action, and it's appallingly bad. To summarize, don't bother watching it. You already know what happens or will quickly get to the point where you don't care. Watching the paint peel on your home would be more entertaining than "Tell."

My boyfriend and I sat down to watch this and turned it off after the first twenty minutes because it was so stupid, Then we decided to give it a chance and continued watching. Big mistake! Whoever made this rubbish was obviously trying to do their best Guy Ritchie rip-off, however, they failed miserably. There's no stars in this so that should have been our first red flag. The lead actor in this is from the series Heroes and in all fairness, both my boyfriend and I liked him in Heroes. But in this role, we didn't believe him in the role one bit. In fact, many of the roles seemed miscast. The filmmakers were so obviously trying to copy films like Snatch and other Ritchie works that we were surprised the actors weren't speaking with Brit accents. The only positive thing that I can say about this film was I liked one of the songs. But one good song does not make a movie watchable. Avoid this one at all costs.

Just saw this and was terribly disappointed. I'm a fan of Robert Patrick but unfortunately he had a smaller role in this movie. The acting by everyone was average and almost seemed as if they all sort of phoned in their performances. Not sure if this was the directors fault or just a lack of interest in the material by the cast, but it really affected the film. The story covered no new ground and felt quite dated which made it a bit boring. It didn't help that the storyline was not very original. The dialogue was filled with clichés and the humor missed its mark. There's some action, but definitely nothing too engaging or inventive. There are so many better action dramas to watch than this one. Tell seemed to miss the mark in most areas and consequently wasn't worth the time to watch it. I gave this a 3 star rating because I like Robert Patrick, but otherwise I would have rated this even lower.

I saw the poster for this movie, and it didn't look all that appealing. I thought it would be a brainless movie that tried to be cute but failing big time. In fact, the only reason I watched this was because of Katee Sackhoff. I've liked her ever since I saw her portrayal of Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica. She's one of the few actresses who can play a badass and be taken seriously doing it. Unfortunately, they don't make use of her ability to play that type of character. Still, the movie was fun and moved along at a fairly brisk pace without losing the storyline. I have to say that the storyline wasn't especially original, but it was done with fun and flare. The movie largely belongs to Milo Ventimiglia, who plays a thief. Katee Sackhoff plays his using, money-grubbing wife/ex-wife to a "T." I gave this a 7-star rating because all the elements came together to make this a fun movie. Parts of it were humorous, other scenes were thrilling to watch. It's not a perfect movie, and there were some missed opportunities when they didn't make more use of Sackhoff. The one scene in the entire movie that is the most memorable is towards the end when Beverly (Sackhoff) informs Tell (Ventimiglia) of a very important reason why she did what she did. The emoting and vocal delivery were perfect.