swedishfishhaveaccents This is amazing. Mocks clichés and then becomes them (intentionally and wittily) and eventually points out clichés are fairly accurate. The acting was great, the characters (except maybe one) very very believable and the plot fantastic and creative. You think you know who the killer is (it's really a pool of two or three people) but then you're unsure again and second-guess yourself right until the end. Everything that is said or done near the beginning of the movie is somehow incorporated by the end in a brilliant manner. The whole time you don't quite know what is going on and want to know immediately, to find out who did itAnd at the end... you're still left uncertain what actually happened

Roddenhyzer Alright, now, Larry Cohen's writing has always been hit-or-miss for me. I liked his "Maniac Cop" series, "It's Alive", "Phone Booth", and even "The Stuff" and "Uncle Sam", but for every enjoyable script he produces, there seems to be an equally awful follow-up, like "Captivity", or, well, this one.The huge problem with "Messages Deleted" is how extremely desperate it is to come off as hip. It's laden with postmodern, self-aware babble about movie staples, story structure, clichés and so on. The main character writes screenplays and teaches scriptwriting in college; a fact that he won't *ever* shut up about. There is a tiny bit of character depth attempted when we see a few scenes of him caring for his demented father and being confronted with some sort of vaguely haunting past, but that's all ditched soon enough in favor of an endless stream of "I KNOW A LOT ABOUT STORYTELLING IN MOVIES! HEAR ME MAKE REFERENCES TO IT AND APPLY MOVIE ANALYSIS TO REAL LIFE!". Excuse the all-caps, but I'm trying to convey just how utterly annoying it is to listen to this gimmicky dialogue all the time, when it's neither natural, nor particularly insightful.Regarding the storyline, all I can say is that for a movie that's so smugly obsessed with pointing the finger at "clichés" every chance it gets, it sure fails to steer clear of them itself. The whole thing is so bland, so mediocre, so utterly conventional that its self-aware pretense and attempted cleverer-than-thou attitude consistently fall flat. Even the core premise of a killer acting out a script is old and unimaginative. Not that it couldn't have been done well, but it's still a contributing factor to making this movie seem nowhere near as fresh as it wants to perceived.Now, after all this misery, there's certainly a bit of salvageable material here. With the exception of Millie and Adam, all the characters are brought to life by pretty skilled actors. Matthew Lillard does a decent job walking the line between "I'm playing a serious character!" and "I'm friggin' Matthew Lillard!", and I always enjoy seeing a bit of Serge Houde, although he's merely the token douchebag cop in this one. Cinematography and editing are also competent enough, in my opinion, to elevate this movie from sub-par to average, but that's really as far as I'm willing to go.In closing, "Messages Deleted" is a movie that's consistently stuck in an uncomfortable rut between making trite and often forced observations about the predictability of thriller movies, and conforming to those very conventions that make thriller movies predictable to begin with.

mgseries If the movie was released sometime between the moment everyone have a cellphone in the 90's and the beginning of police forensics like in the "CSI" TV Series, I would have certainly enjoy this movie.Movie started good, until the first murder. Detectives are there, but there's no forensics work at all to find out clues about the suspects, no fingerprints verification, no phone records verification, just suspicions and coincidence that Joel appeared on the 2nd crime scene, and listening to the message on Claire's answering machine: "That's our guy! Release the suspect!"I mean, c'mon, he's a professor at University, he should know better about all the common errors which leads to getting caught, but he just do everything for evidence to lead to him, despite above mentioned sloppy detective work.Also, after the 2nd murder, why didn't he activate the function to forward all his calls to his cellphone? When a stranger is in a hurry to go to the airport but reluctantly give you a half-way lift for 100$, WHY would you trust that person to wait for you, regardless how much you give him?Something that ticked me off, back at Millie's place, it is mentioned the original script was reflecting reality, and page 76, it is what's happening now. But Joel wasn't a bit curious to read further in order to figure out what's gonna happen next and find ways to avoid everything bad in the script.Avoid this movie, unless you're bored and have nothing else to watch but a light crime movie like this one. I originally give it a 1 out of 10, but I'll give a 2 instead for Gina Holden and Chiara Zanni.

mrcodymulhall I had very low expectations going into this movie. It has absolutely no marketing or buzz factor (hence I am the first to review it on IMDb) and Matthew Lillard seems to be beyond his prime. Although the plot seemed very original and intriguing. After watching the film, I must admit I am hungry for more. The ideas are unique and the the story is beyond catchy. Without giving away spoilers, the story reminded me of looking at a photograph within a photograph. At first glance it seems too abstract to be realistic but once you uncover the idea behind it you are left memorized. Lillard gave a stunning performance beyond what I thought he was capable of. It's not just a slasher horror, yet an intense mystery thriller that could have twisted in any way, shape or form towards the end. After everything unraveled I found myself wanting to watch it again to full grasp the plot in a new light. Here we have a prime example of true film screen magic where it does not take a hundred plus million dollar budget or an A-list actor/actress in order to entertain. I give this movie a strong recommendation for anyone who appreciates it's respected genre and the art of film in general.