Dir. Guillaume Canet. 131 minutes.
2/5
Pediatrician Alexandre Beck (François Cluzet) found his wife (Marie-Josée Croze) dead in a homicide for which he was the chief suspect. Eight years later, he receives an email that appears to be from his deceased wife, and finds himself plunged into a tangled conspiracy to frame him for two additional murders.
“Tell No One” is a workmanlike thriller that doesn’t attempt to subvert the genre. All the familiar faces are here: the hunted man, scrambling breathlessly to clear himself of false charges; the serial killer with the gimmicky M.O.; the hard-bitten cop who drops blood-spattered pieces of evidence into plastic bags. If it’s less memorable than “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” it’s at least less silly, though at one point the hero does receive a sinister email from “anonymous@nobody.org” — I suppose “murderer@facelessconspiracy.com” was already taken.
“Tell No One” distinguishes itself less by its plotting than by its action setpieces, during one of which has Beck sprinting across a four-lane highway and taking refuge from a rat-infested dumpster. Cluzet brings a warm, everymannish charm to the role of a good man, falsely accused, and helps maintain the audience’s investment in the film even as its inevitable, improbable plot twists begin to unfold. Amusingly, director Guillame Canet also casts himself as a maniacal child-predator. If you’re not sick of serial killers, and if the phrase “a deadly game of cat and mouse” doesn’t make you yawn, this film may be for you.
