I was not expecting much from "The Tall Man." In fact the only reason I rented it was for Stephen McHattie and Jodelle Ferland. On first glance it appeared no more than a standard slasher flick, what with the frankly lame title and the cover, featuring Jessica Biel staring blankly ahead as a generic hooded figure towers behind her ominously.
Seriously, is that the best cover they could come up with? There's an art to making movies look unappealing and bland, and movies like "The Tall Man" are an easy target for it. Look at the cover. It tells us absolutely nothing about the movie. In fact, it's misleading once you watch the damn thing, because not only is it not a slasher film, it's not even horror.
The second thing is the title. "The Tall Man" is just a boring, generic sounding name. The Italian title translates to "The Children of Cold Rock." That's actually far more accurate and interesting, despite not flowing off the tongue quite so easily. Not that any of this really matters to the movie itself, I just bring it all up because "The Tall Man" as a film is better than one might expect upon first impressions.
Although it is a bit ridiculous how often Jessica Biel gets tied to a chair in this movie.
"The Tall Man" is about a run down former mining community in Oregon that has been plagued with the disappearance of children at the rate of about one every 2 months. As a result, a local legend has emerged which tells of a tall, hooded man seen at the scenes of the disappearances, and he's become something of a boogy-man. At the start of the film, Stephen McHattie, playing an FBI agent, is leading the search for Jessica Biel's missing child. We then flash back to 36 hours earlier to see the events that led up to his disappearance.
That's really all the setup I want to give away. Not too far into the movie, "The Tall Man" starts going places I had no idea it was going to go. Suffice to say that at about half an hour in, I was saying to myself "Well, this is going to be a short movie." It almost seemed like the climax of the film, with the confrontation between the villain and the protagonist, had been rushed to the end of the first act. From that point on, it's really hard to tell exactly where things are headed in this film.
In fact, "The Tall Man" made me feel like an idiot for attempting to call it before it was done unfolding completely. I'll admit that I thought I had this movie's number down pat, and there was not a little amount of scoffing on my part going on, I have to tell you. The condescending snob in me started firing up the eye rolls and the "Well, obviously, that's what's going on now" remarks, but it was all for naught, because at about the hour mark the movie had me completely baffled as to what I was watching.
Even Stephen McHattie, in all his craggy faced glory, is trying to figure out what the hey is going on.
The effect was so strong that I honestly began to doubt my own observations. What I first considered to be an impossible place for "The Tall Man" to go ended up being not only the destination, but one that actually made a lot of sense. It wasn't a plot twist for the sake of having a plot twist. It's nice to see something like that handled well, because that is an easy thing to screw up. And I see it screwed up all the time.
If there was one thing I had a legitimate gripe with, it was that once again, Jodelle Ferland got totally shafted in the role she was playing. She is such a freaking amazing actress, but it seems that nobody wants to cast her in a role that really shows her off to the amount she should be. For example, in this movie she narrates the beginning and the end, and she is a reasonably significant character despite not getting a huge amount of screen time. In fact there were several occasions when it surprised me when she popped up after being gone so long, because I had actually forgotten she was in it.
But here's the thing: They made her a mute. A mute! Can you even believe that? That's such a waste of talent. Now, don't get me wrong, she tore that role up like she destroys every role. But come on. Let the poor girl speak, will ya? I'm sure it was a challenging and interesting role for her to take, since she had to convey all those emotions without dialogue, and I respect that, but when I see one of my favorite actresses in a legitimately good movie that I'm enjoying, dammit I want the whole package!
Look at that face. Yeah. Now just imagine how good she is when she's speaking.
Actually, besides Jodelle, the whole cast was good. I'm not a huge Jessica Biel fan, but she was fine. William B. Davis, immortalized as "The Cigarette Smoking Man" on "The X-Files" played the sheriff, which is a weird exercise in suspension of disbelief since it was impossible to not look at him and assume he wasn't a bad guy. Stephen McHattie was awesome as always but like Jodelle, he didn't get enough screen time for my liking. Oh well. At least he was allowed to talk.
So I guess the whole point of this is that "The Tall Man" is a movie that exceeded expectations by a pretty wide margin. I know this entry was kind of vague, but to be honest I feel a bit like I've spoiled the effect by simply acknowledging the fact that it isn't what you'd expect it to be. So I guess I'll shut up now.
You can keep talking, though. Seriously. Like in every movie.
THE BOTTOM LINE - I liked "The Tall Man" much more than I was expecting to. It's a very well made, completely engrossing drama that doesn't telegraph anything, making it a very effective mystery. And if this is your first exposure to Jodelle Ferland, hey there's bonus points for you. Now go watch "Tideland," where she actually speaks.
No comments:
Post a Comment