Ten 'til Noon

I should've realised it was a sign of things to come when the trailer for this film bored me.

Having watched several "indie" films on the strength of the reviews on here, and subsequently finding that my view is completely opposite to those other reviewers, I began wondering if it's possible I am watching completely different films from these people, or are they perhaps friends/family etc of the film makers trying to 'big up' their work? Hmmm.

Are you interested in seeing an amateur's homage to Pulp Fiction and 11:14, except done with worse actors, a silly score (undermines various scenes) and unbelievable jumps in logic? If not, then skip this film.

Here is my open letter to two of the players in this film.

Alfonso Morgan, please, please, please, stop trying to 'be' Samuel L Jackon a la Pulp Fiction. No-one can do what he does as well as he does.

Director, please come up with something original. It does you a disservice to churn out this stuff pretending to be Quentin Tarantino.

Simply dire, and I really cannot see how anyone could say this is a good film. It is a disgrace that people have somehow managed to put a score of 8.5 on this, the same as films like Pulp fiction or Goodfellas. It is no-where near these movies; a 4 or 5 would be a more reasonable average rating, I give it a 3.

I just saw this at the Indie Festival in San Francisco. No one else may ever get to see this one, but you should, so I'll make some comments.

The premise is very intriguing. A murder happens. The action occupies 10 minutes -- no more, no less, and that's what we see. Then we see a replay of those 10 minutes, and the actions of people associated with the murder, from their point of view.

This is a very clever premise, and the director pulls it off OK. As you might imagine, the acting is uneven; some very good, some really mediocre. The fellow who plays the hit-man is incredibly smooth, and his boss, Mr. Duke, also seems to be a more experienced actor. The rest of them are questionable. Larry (the unhappy bloke who is the hittee) is lame. Parts of the script are wooden. We also never get to see the story of the bank robber, which had the most potential in the whole setup. The gay characters are more of a plot trick than real people.

But on the whole, entertaining, with enough plot twists to make for an interesting time. I just wish they had done more with the script.

"Ten 'til Noon" is one of those films that are more interesting for their form rather than their content. The concept (how different but interconnecting characters spend 10 minutes of their life, from 11:50 to 12:00 p.m) is intriguing, the twists (that come when the concept is finally broken) are genuinely unexpected, the acting is fine (Rayne Guest, in perhaps the film's trickiest role, is both explosively sexy and a good actress), the direction is perfectly OK for the budget, but ultimately the film is little more than an exercise in gimmickry (even having a 5-minute epilogue sequence AFTER some of the end credits have rolled), with a few Tarantino influences also evident (mostly in the dialogue). Overall, I'd say it's worth seeing for its sheer audacity. (**)

Too many people have rated this film poorly. This is a fun movie made in the Hollywood underground style that gave us hits like "Reservoir Dogs" and "El Mariachi". The story itself is clever and one of the smartest shoot-em-up flicks I've seen since "Shooter". A lot of plot twists and an ending that leaves a bittersweet sense of closure. The film introduces a lot of new talent in the acting arena too. No big stars carry this one. No big name director (though he should be). No huge label. And yet it's destined to be a classic. The film isn't perfect. It's not the best movie ever made. It IS a great treat and something worth seeing. I am in NO WAY attached to the production. I don't know ANYONE attached to the film. I've been plugging it left and right though. GREAT FILM!!! Frederic Doss http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2427168/

I caught this at SF Indiefest and didn't know what to expect beyond a tired retreat of "Momento" or "Pulp Fiction". But I was extremely surprised and impressed - "Ten 'til Noon" is a true original, a terrifically involving, funny thriller that is able to consistently surprise the audience.

Well-acted, well-shot, and much slicker than the other low-budget fair at the festival, this movie is actually able to reinvent itself every ten minutes with significant shifts in tone, yet it never feels jarring or that somehow we've wandered into a different film. The result is a brilliant, wide-ranging view of a very small event (a 10 minute crime), and how it both effects and is effected by the players involved.

One should be warned that the movie has it's fair share of potentially offensive stuff - sex, violence, language, and homosexuality, all presented in somewhat extreme fashion, which is a surprise given the overly mature, sober tone and pace of much of the film.

If you have a chance to catch this film, do so. We, as an audience, aren't lucky enough to have a lot of movies like this out there.