The Tall Man

Three Masks And A Movie
THE TALL MAN is a social morality play disguised as a thriller disguised as a horror. It takes place in Cold Rock, a Washington mining town that has been devastated by the economy. Most of the citizens are dysfunctional hicks and rednecks who seem content to scrabble among the woods, getting drunk, fighting, or just rocking in front of the diner and watching it all waste away. Everyone, that is, except for Julia (Jessica Biel), the widowed nurse/wife of the town's only doctor ("He held this community together," more than one persons says). She is beautiful, poised, and has the determination and grit of a Terminator-era Linda Hamilton as she saves the lives of illegitimate babies in her ramshackle clinic (which used to be a school), or confronts abusive molesters in their trash-strewn front lawns.

Big problem with the town: kids are disappearing. No one knows how, but the kidnappings happen so rapidly -- sometimes in broad daylight -- that people have invested the events...

Horrible, Exasperating Waste of Time
I do not normally leave reviews but I felt the need to warn people away from this movie because it is truly awful. Jessica Biel must have owed someone associated with this movie a big favor. I have no other explanation as to why she would have agreed to do this film.

She spends most of her time simply staring, dazed, into the eyes of various people, saying nothing. The viewer knows she is the only person who has any idea what's happening and the writer and director perform the most infuriating acrobatics to ensure she reveals nothing.

You wait and wait... and wait for the reveal - and nothing ever happens.

This is most assuredly not a horror movie and it's only a thriller if you're thrilled by 90 minutes of an exaggeratedly coy demeanor and excessively obtuse behavior.

The manner in which this movie slowly culminates into some bizarre socio-political statement is akin to watching a very old man walk up a long flight of stairs,...

Monsters come in many sizes and shapes - and the worst ones are those with a heart...
This very good film shocked me as few others did since "Seven", surprised me as few others did since the "Usual suspects" and in a couple of scenes also scared me (although ultimately it was not half as scary as I expected).

The story happens in Cold Rock, a little half-abandoned town in the state of Washington, where for the last couple of years somebody or SOMETHING abducted seventeen little children, babies or toddlers. There never was a viable suspect and no bodies were ever found. Terrified local residents nick named the person or THING behind those appearances "The Tall Man". A local nurse, Julia Dening, will finally become extremely concerned by the question "Who, or WHAT, is The Tall Man". A mute young girl, Jenny (Jodelle Ferland), who is the only one to really have seen "The Tall Man" with her own eyes, holds maybe some clues to solve the riddle...

This is a very clever, very surprising thriller which manages to preserve the suspense for a very long...

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