The Tangle

I'll start by saying I love thought-provoking intelligent sci-fi. However this is not that. It is only dressed up as that. It's pretentious, cheap and boring. I honestly can't think of anything positive to say about this film other than the noir detective element is nice. Everything else was a waste of my time.

Big fan of Christopher Soren Kelly and was really anticipating this movie. This is a dialogue heavy movie but you start out with very little understanding going in. Sure there's explanations in the characters interactions but as good as the writing is, it doesn't feel natural. For example a suspcet is explaning how the Tangle works, to the people who created it. And the conversations are so quick you don't get a chance to absorb exactly what's going on.

The premise looked interesting, but within the first 5 minutes I was annoyed by the dialogue and the pretentiousness of the acting. Within about 15 minutes I had solved the murder mystery. Then I got bored with the poetry that served no purpose in the plot and I fell asleep and woke up towards end, just in time for some more poetry and the revelation the the murder was indeed just as I had predicted 15 minutes in.

The three stars are for the idea and the acting of the guy who plays Carter. The rest of it is a big nope.

That said, my husband liked it, so like always, it comes down to taste.

This film goes in my box of "What a shame" flicks-- movies that had great potential but the writer / director just blew it by one single but major flaw. In the case of this one, it was the very disappointing "hang in the air" ending. No spoilers, but it spoiled the movie for me.

To be clear: unlike a lot of reviewers, I didn't mind the "scripted, stilted" language. This is a movie set in the future. If there is anything history has shown us, language changes drastically over time. To expect them to speak the same manner in which we speak would be unrealistic. The problem however was the delivery: lines and phases spoken too quickly and without emotion, as if being read off a teleprompter. That's poor directing and acting both.

The story presents a very unique concept. How does one commit a murder in a world where absolutely every detail is recorded, every nanosecond of the day?

Contrary to some vapid claims here, this movie is nothing like The Matrix.. Viewers need to get used to the fact that there are going to be more and more movies about virtual reality... because that field of science is becoming less fictional. Not every movie about virtual worlds is a "rip off" of The Matrix. How many movies have been made about two people falling in love? Yet we still watch romance movies. The entire atmosphere of this movie is different: noir, most of it set in a single room, most of it relying on observation rather than special effects. It's different enough to be interesting... if one can keep up with the Tommy-gun dialog.

What this is... is a pretty decent murder mystery. Plot, mystery, clues, reasonable acting (especially by the primary suspect). What it doesn't have is a well-thought-out ending... and for that inexcusable blunder I give it 4 stars. There's little more that I hate in a movie that for it to string people along for the entire film, then drop the plot on their laps, leaving them to design their own conclusion. Makes one want to taser the director in the tenders, it does.

If someone wishes to watch this, I'd recommend doing so simply for the unusual style of the film. You'll possibly enjoy 99.5% of the film... right down to the last blundering minute. Then maybe not so much. That's the smack, Jack.

A man is shackled to a table and has a very quickfire interrogation by a man and a woman about an event in a park.

Then he's accused of a murder but a telephone call from someone that we don't know and don't hear brings a halt to the interrogation.

25 minutes later the man is now on a telephone repeating non-understandable prose like a modern day Denis Leary.

2 minutes after that I lose patience and turn this crap off.