Invoking the Plasma Boy from Buzz Lightyear (2000) I felt singularly appropriate after seeing this here feature. "Extremely interesting" à la Spock pertains as well. It has its moments, enough of which to keep me from bailing on it - even a couple what moved me eyes to dampness - but not sufficient for me to rate it any higher. This is chiefly due to F. Whitehead's portrayal of the bad elder son, wherein his line deliveries & character projection are too frequently are as flat as his lips are thin. Intermittent flashes of real menace Just Ain't Good Enough to wholly redeem his efforts, puzzlingly interspersed with concern for their mother - which flamed out horribly at some less than Motel 6 fleabag party. However, it was in the end that his character's (late) concern for his little brother that came through effectively enough to get me (quietly) boohooing - it really showed a pained boy's regret at his coldness & love for his brother; even now I'm going to blinking some at the recollection. This R. Wilson, whose misspelled 1st name (along with an easier on the eyes S. W. Scott whose career I recently read had somehow begun circling the drain) grates my senses, has unfortunately too little to do but makes the most of it - banishing his The Office character to the dustbin it deserves - & we can hope he takes on more roles suited to the post-bar-fight gnarly visage here; no Terminator surely, but more than capable of being suddenly scary after 1st appearing the opposite. (His scripted reference to a pickup truck as a "car" is incredibly the 4th straight such idiocy in randomly selected features in "streaming" mode, which wants immediate cessation!) The poor sick mother herself turning coldly protective was a welcome bit of "Oh!" startlement that hadn't been expected, & the ... "ambiguous" closing which leaves the viewer only to speculate What Happened Next is something many a more established/better funded slice of cinema have failed to do as effectively. The bleakness of its landscape (which this site information revealed to be Louisville), amplified by the pollution spewing smokestacks, itself portrays a certain inevitability of fate that even the moneyed set of that town cannot dodge; their height along with the crap they vomit out gleefully & grimly ensures that. And, hardly likely to be of note to a great many viewers, something so should-be simple as a real phone number (on the work *pickup truck* at the house jobsite), provides an aspect of "realness" that no piles of "555-019x" - the last 4 very weirdly having become rote demonstrations - can equal. So despite its lesser aspects, the elements of creativity in this production - starting with the title, which the substitution of only the 1st letter recalled a hilarious line from The Jetsons (1962) - stand out to make it a standout among its filmed brethren & sistren. To this Very Day, for just 1 example, I still have not seen more than the 1st 15 minutes of Bored Of The Rings #1, its derivations from the peerless source material (along with the other 5 cinematic crimes against Tolkien) flatly intolerable to endure. "Not this one!' which the alleged "leaders" of that guns-mad corrupt town would do well to heed its messages.
Review of Don't Tell a Soul
