MBunge There's something uniquely frustrating about this film. Bad movies are a certain kind of disappointment. Good movies that go bad are another. Tell Tale aims at and successfully achieves a complacent mediocrity and then just as it suggests it might become something better, it goes right in the toilet. Being lulled into a resigned acceptance, only to have your hopes raised and then instantly dashed is an aggravating emotional whiplash. I usually wish that movies had been better. I would have preferred this one to be worse, sparing me those few bitter moments of futile hope.Based loosely, and I mean very loosely, on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", this motion picture is about Terry Bernard (Josh Lucas). He's a recent heart transplant recipient trying to get his life back in order. He's got a young daughter named Angela (Beatrice Miller) with a terminal genetic disorder and Angela has a beautiful doctor named Liz (Lena Headey) who's also pretty fond of Terry. I'd like to tell you more about these characters but they don't have any distinct personalities. If you smushed all their defining character traits together you still wouldn't have anything resembling a three dimensional human being.Terry starts having these episodes where he hears his heart thundering in his ears and sees strange images of people milling about in a dark room. These episodes eventually lead to Terry killing people and with the help of a jaded detective (Brian Cox), he learns that his victims are the people who killed the person whose heart now beats in Terry's chest. And that demanding, magical organ isn't gong to let Terry stop killing.Now, let me give you an example of what I mean by Tell Tale being mediocre. A pretty big deal is made of Angela's genetic disorder, to the point where there's an entire scene built around it. Terry having a sick daughter, though, let alone one with a very rare and heart-breaking condition, never goes anywhere or amounts to anything. It doesn't play any role in the plot. It's not connected to anything else in the story. Angela's disease doesn't mirror Terry's condition or link up with it thematically somehow. You could make Angela healthy and Liz her math tutor without changing anything significant in this film. And that's what I mean by mediocre. Tell Tale isn't bad, there's simply no depth or complexity or sophistication to any of it.Which is okay. A mediocre movie is better than a bad one, but then this flick has to go and suddenly get smart. It begins to suggest that the heart isn't only using Terry for vengeance. The heart may be changing Terry into its original owner, setting up a second and more intriguing conflict. The heart isn't only taking revenge…it's also taking Terry's identity. But as that concept starts to emerge from the mire, the film abruptly turns stupid and falls into an overly melodramatic ending that only works because Tell Tale violates its central premise. All of the supernatural powers the heart has demonstrated throughout the story are pounded away by the Almighty Plot Hammer and Terry is left a helpless victim before his enemies because writer David Callaham apparently couldn't figure out a way to write a climax that didn't involve one cliché after another.All of the actors here do good work, with Josh Lucas exceeding the barren script to create believable relationships for Terry with both Angela and Liz. Lena Headey admirably soldiers through a typically thankless girlfriend role and looks amazing. Brian Cox is possibly the best thing in the production as a cynical, defeated cop given new hope by the unbelievable until he's betrayed by a crushingly trite motivation. And director Michael Cuesta does a perfectly acceptable job.It's dispiriting turn at the end leaves Tell Tale a sub-mediocre 90 minute movie that could have been a worthwhile 2 hour flick if it had followed through on its potential. It didn't, so it's not worth your while

KilRydLoad I give this movie a perfect 10 out of 10 stars because it is an awesome modernization of Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart...but viewer, be warned...I'm a grown-ass man of 37 years who has been watching horror movies since he was 8 years old...and I almost vomited at one point during this movie! Like my review title says, it's sicker than any Friday the 13th movie I have EVER seen, and I don't know how a certain IMDb reviewer from Argentina found this movie to be "boring"...IT IS ANYTHING BUT BORING!SPOILER BELOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OK...what's gross about this movie? At one point, they have Josh Lucas in a bathtub covered in ice, and they start cutting out his organs...while he's awake! Seriously, I almost vomited! Just trust me when I say it's gross! Again...10 out of 10 stars due to the great plot and ingenious re-telling of the Poe classic...but NOT for the faint of heart! I won't be watching this one again...it's just too gross!!!

Argemaluco Even though it pretends to be a free adaptation of the classic short story The Tell-Tale Heart, written by the great Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), the film Tell-Tale is in fact a rehash of the old sub-genus of "malignant part of the body", which includes horror movies such as The Hand, Body Parts and The Eye. Those films showed how an organ transplanted from one body to the other can produce unexpected effects, usually with tragic consequences to the patient (or victim) of the procedure. And even though Tell-Tale has a few positive elements, its tedious narrative and bland drama ended up producing a boring and unsatisfactory film experience.There are two predictable twists in Tell-Tale: the first one is revealed pretty soon, and the other one, at the ending. And besides of that, this film is basically a collection of long and uninteresting scenes in which we see the main character afflicted by events he does not understand; the treatment for his daughter's illness; and the insipid romance he was with a doctor. And the worst thing of all is that none of those elements substantially contribute to the story, and they feel as simple fillers so that the time goes through while there are not murder scenes.Tell-Tale includes elements from a medical drama, a thriller and a horror film which deals with supernatural subjects...however, there is not an adequate cohesion between them. On the positive side, Josh Lucas, Lena Headey, Brian Cox and Beatrice Miller bring solid performances despite having such poor material to work with. So, in conclusion, I cannot recommend Tell-Tale, because I found it to be a very boring movie which lacks of any emotion, impact or suspense.

Melissa Mendelson A cry for help was a dagger to his heart. Fragments of memory, moments not his crashed into view, and the adrenaline rush of revenge surged through his veins. They had to pay. He had to make them pay, but could he live with the haunting images of their death? He wanted to walk away, but his heart told him different. He had no choice, and now they were coming for him. He stepped into their trap, taking the bait, and they were going to end this, silence him before the truth escaped. But were they prepared for all that his heart would tell, the vengeful spirit itching to take them down? What secrets would surface across the rivers of their blood, and what life waited to be lived when justice was finally answered? A riveting tale of suspense is echoing across the pages of Poe and beating deep, deep into the far reaches of one man's journey between life and death.