Address Unknown (1997)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Not a blockbuster, for sure. More of a Saturday Afternoon at the Movies or "Showcase Family Festival" calibre (when such existed. Boo on Showcase!). Still very engaging. The younger actors carry their lead roles very well. Totally genuine in their reactions. Some good teen humor thrown in. Howard's being older than he looks produces young-looking characters with an impressive emotional depth.Responding to an earlier reviewer's comment wondering why the two men in the opening scene were driving around with a bag of US mail with just one valuable letter. It can be easy to miss that Matt's father had been a very good investigative reporter: and that one letter to his then- infant son was a form of "insurance" that would explain and exonerate them for their actions and blow the case wide open. It's no wonder they treated it as something so valuable. And the bad guys not looking for it showed they had no idea the reporter had been so shrewd in making sure the story would be told even in his absence.

Address Unknown is a very enjoyable film, especially because of its intelligent direction of actors, and the talent and personality of its two chief teenagers: Kyle Howard and Johnna Stewart, even if Howard looks younger than his character and himself are. I expect to see more of them. The trouble with this film is that once you have seen it and enjoyed it, the falseness of its initial sequence is evident. What were those two characters doing with a bag of U.S. Mail? Why was it in their hands? Why was it so important to them since it did not contain anything of real value, except a letter from one of them that was important only to the recipient?

"address unknown" is surprisingly intriguing. As it started, I was expecting it to be a childish, amateurish, teenage spy spoof, but it wasn't. This film was actually smart. The writers actually took time out to develop their main characters genuinely instead of seeming like they had to. My only complaints are; I wish the parents were more involved in the story and the movie seems to shy too far away from the plot to focus on the characters. I found myself forgetting what the movie was about because of that. But all-in-all, the film is smart, the characters are interesting and funny, and the plot seems well-thought up. ***. A fun teen-sleuth film.