Confess

This surprisingly, well motivated and tightly scripted story is about a embittered young man who turns to an extreme method of protest via the Internet. Terell (Eugene Byrd) is a computer genius hacker, who returns to New York after an extending absence to face his old business partner, his family and try to bring a little more justice by spreading the truth with his spy camera videos. Olivia Averill (Ali Larter) is a sensual intense Columbia grad student who is driven to find a way to report on social content. Their worlds cross in a very unexpected way that forces Terell to hide his real identity. When his video protests hit the media, he becomes more like a comic book hacker hero whose followers quickly get out of control. Excellent and believable and filled out roles, all around, for the versatile William Sadler as a Senator caught in the crossfire, Glenn Fitzgerald as a savvy but ruthless business partner, Scott Cohen as a really mad, enraged media executive and the very polished Melissa Leo as Terell's mother.

If you like Michael Moore movies then you'll love this one. The main character (Terell) is obviously more over the top in his methods, but they both ambush powerful figures, videotape them, then edit the footage to make them look as bad as possible. It's really sleazy and hard to root for him as a hero unless you're some kind of anti-establishment, anarchist, Marxist, or assorted nut job. The movie sets up all these straw men for Terell to expose who are ridiculously stereotypical. They're all racist, arrogant, rich, greedy, snobby, condescending. The film tries to convince you that every white housewife is a bitch, every white kid is a spoiled brat, every white person who works in an office is a pompous jerk. I can take a well-done movie where the villain is a senator or CEO, but I don't want to be preached to that there's an organized establishment designed to protect itself and keep everyone else down.

An annoying plot line involves how the hero is a computer genius but was previously forced out of his company at age 19 by venture capitalists who took his invention and got rich off it while he got nothing. It's just more stereotypical crap. And if he's such a genius how come he can't get his life going again afterward? Because he's a spiteful jerk who sits around feeling sorry for himself instead of moving on with his life.

Hey, changing the world is no easy trick. The little guy get's stepped on all the time. And even when someone tries to do something to shake up the establishment, things can so easily go wrong. And of course, nobody's perfect; not even the little guy. This movie says it all. Great concept. Great script. Great acting. What's not to like?

Eugene Byrd has been around for a long time (Sesame Street) but hasn't ever been given a chance to really carry a film. He does it here, demonstrating again he has serious acting chops.

Ali Larter (HEROES) is now a big star, but the fact that she does smaller projects like this - ones where she isn't getting paid millions - shows she's interested in expanding her horizons beyond only being the attractive blonde.

I hear the DVDs coming out in August. See it!

Stefan Schaefer's excellent first feature film, Confess, is a wonderfully written and acted, tense current-era thriller about political protest turned virulent and uncontrollable in our modern internet-ecology and -video information age. Embittered and talented computer hacker Terell (Eugene Byrd) re-emerges in New York after a long period underground, following a devastating start-up failure, for which he blames his ex-business partner. His personal revenge schemes via clandestine webcam metastasize into a powerful and dangerous terrorist-style movement that culminates in reckless kidnappings and murderous copycats. Schafer employs super smart use of the digital video medium and sometimes frenetic-seeming editing, as well as rewinds and flashbacks, to charge his premise with urgency and make it taut. With first-rate performances by entire cast, and a well-wrought script, the movie manages to, without bludgeoning, get its message nicely across.