Phantom Movie Reviews

Tell No One. This is a critically acclaimed French psychological drama that involves a French pediatrician. Alex Beck, his sister, her female lover, the father of his ex wife, who was murdered eight years earlier. The police expect Beck of the murder, which has complicating circumstances, and he has to avoid the police.

The plot is amazingly complex, and I was never sure who the good guys and bad guys are, or if there are in any good guys. The acting is wonderful, the movie fully subtitled, and the action superb, in my view. The chase scene is realistic, for a change.

It is a long movie, and even with that, there is a point toward the end of the movie where the well known device of "the conversation" between two of the principals explains what we have seen so far. In this case, I think it necessary, since in just about every other scene, someone new shows up in an important chink of the story.

I think this is storytelling at its finest. If you would enjoy a French version of "The French Connection" I think you would like this. Another comparison might be "Insomnia." But this is not bubble gum for the mind: if you're looking for escapism, this isn't it.

I've been asked about rating the movies I write about. I hesitate to do so, since people have different tastes, so I just try to give an idea of what the movie is like without giving away much of the content(some people, including me, don’t like to know what they're going to see before they see it). So I'm going to try an experiment and "grade" different aspects of the movie. Feel free to comment on what you think of this and of the result.

Script: A+

Action: B

Comic Relief: N/A.

Acting: A-.

Necessity to suspend disbelief: A.

Relevance: A-