Goodnight, Charlene

Crime thrillers can be hard to do, but writer/director Chris Zuhdi tackles this story with such restraint and artistry, it's incredibly compelling. You really feel the Texas backdrop seeping through every single frame. Great job!

I'm glad I came across this movie. It's about a local mechanic who's wife and side piece try's to set him up and kill him for a large amount of money. They connect with a crooked cop and mayor of the town to make it happen. But sometimes there's still good people around that helps out the innocent. Watch how it all plays out. A must see

This is like concentrated Noir but in color. I am shocked by the low marks some reviewers gave it. This is a work of art. Maybe it does not appeal to those who like to watch movies with actors overacting, nudity and gore. I loved everything about it: the actors, the camera work, the plot, everything. I gave up on watching movies made since the late 70's because most of them are devoid of any artistic merit. This is one of the very few exceptions, like the Cohen Brothers' productions. If you like Tom Cruise trying to play a big boy, this is not for you I suppose.

Goodnight, Charlene is a made-to-order thriller for those who crave layer upon layer of insinuation, yet don't require that a given film must neatly gift-wrap each and every plot point in some triumphant moment of culmination. In recent years - thanks to the relentless and ultimately unsolved plot intricacies of films like Marcel Langenegger's Deception - we've let go of this prerequisite and instead have allowed ourselves to bask in a bit of unsettled mystery. Director Chris Zuhdi successfully creates such a film with Goodnight, Charlene.

Three Sands is a border town. Zuhdi himself plays Charlie, an exceedingly normal and unexceptional man married to a duplicitous spouse played by Melanie San Millan, who has given her heart and body to the local barkeep. Soon, the extramarital couple decides it's time to remove Charlie from their lives and his. What ensues is a truckload of curveballs suitable to keep even the most fiendish plot twist junkie continually satiated.

The movie commands constant attention because of it. There's no intermittent tuning out option provided for the viewer, as Zuhdi is here to leverage complication to his advantage in a film that is by no means lite far. When he brings us to its crescendo, we realize that what we've seen in Goodnight Charlene is a well-directed, intriguingly-lit indie that successfully navigates its own winding roadmap to deliver on the promise of a very solid thriller.

What a fun thriller!! I appreciated how the Director created suspicion without serving everything up on a silver platter. I'm good at jumping ahead of a movie as to what comes next... and this film kept me guessing. It kept me dialed in from beginning to end. The story and acting were that good. I often will sort of zone out while watching a film. That was not the case here. For me, a thumbs up for sure!