It takes about six minutes to get to the first twist in the French thriller Tell No One, but the movie wraps us up in a delicious, velvety fog (apologies to Mel Torme) from that moment on, and the twists don't stop coming until the final credits roll some two hours later.
Francois Cluzet stars as Alex Beck, a pediatrician whose wife was abducted and killed eight years earlier, leaving more than a few unresolved issues that suddenly seem to rearing their heads once again. Although his wife's killer was supposedly captured, Alex remains a prime suspect in the crime. And when long-buried bodies with Alex's blood on them are unearthed near her murder site — and then more new corpses begin turning up — the good doctor finds himself caught in a shadowy conspiracy that forces him to go on the run, old-school Fugitive style, as he desperately attempts to prove his innocence while being pursued by all manner of armed and dangerous adversaries. Oh, and then there's the little matter of those mysterious e-mails that have begun to appear, suggesting his wife might not even be dead after all.
Director Guillaume Canet delights in leading us in one direction and then pulling the rug out from beneath us, encouraging us to connect the dots in a labyrinthine puzzle that grows so intricate and hectically paced, the zigs and zags become almost too much. It's a beautifully crafted film, for the most part, but it all resolves itself in an increasingly convoluted and overly elaborate series of revelations, including a final swathe of exposition that runs nearly a third the running time of some feature films.
Tell No One (NR) Stars Francois Cluzet, Marie-Josée Croze, Andre Dussollier, Kristin Scott Thomas, Francois Berleand, Nathalie Baye, Marina Hands and Jean Rochefort. Opens Aug. 29 at Tampa Theatre. Call theater to confirm. 3.5 stars
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2008.