A Movie You Might Have Missed #54 : Tell No One

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Eight years ago, Alex's wife was murdered.

Today she emailed him.

Tell No One (2006 ‘Ne le dis à personne’)

Tell No One, as Jack Black says in School of Rock, "will test your head, and your mind, and your brain."

That's because it is a truly fast paced thriller which one must keep up with while reading French subtitles. Sometimes we had to go back and reread a couple which were obliquely referring to plot points while delivered quickly in brief bursts. However, it was definitely worth it.

This director must love American thrillers. Tell No One has the pacing, sound, look, and (most importantly) plot of a top notch Hollywood thriller. Partly that's because the original story is from Harlen Coben who cowrote the script with the director. Partly that's because the acting and directing were right on target.

The many twists keep you guessing and just when you are convinced that you've seen a couple of loose ends go by, they get neatly wrapped up. I was even more impressed when I read Roger Ebert's review afterward and realized many of the subtle points that I missed.

If you give enough thought to the film, you'll begin to realize that many of the key roles are twinned, high and low. There are two cops closely on either side of retirement age. Two attractive brunettes. A cop and a crook who have similar personal styles. Two blondes who are angular professional women. Two lawyers. One of the assassins looks a little like Alex, but has a beard. Such thoughts would never occur during the film, which is too enthralling. But it shows what love and care went into the construction of the puzzle.

This is a movie that is definitely worth watching at least twice.