Tell-Tale (2009)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

So this is a movie based on one of Edgar Allan Poe's popular short stories. Although it's not all that close to it, except the movie deals with heartbeats and murders. Josh Lucas is the main protagonist in this movie and he plays a single father raising a daughter that has an illness. But when he gets a heart transplant and meets a female doctor that he starts a relationship with, things start to change. Especially within himself. Josh Lucas is actually really good in this, in fact he sort of reminds me of an American version of Daniel Craig. The thing is the beginning interested me than the rest of the movie. The mystery of trying to figure out what is going on kinda drives this movie. But when finding out what is going on, it just basically goes in a narrow and not very interesting direction. Overall the mystery aspect of this movie is kinda interesting but the rest is just mundane.5.5/20

The plot: a man receives a heart transplant, only to find himself forced by the donor's spirit to avenge the donor's brutal murder.Let's be honest here. Once you find out that a person in a horror movie has had a transplant, there's only two possible ways it can go: 1) He turns into a serial killer or 2) He's forced to solve the mystery / avenge the death of the donor. That's it. Those are the only two possible plots allowed by hack screen writing convention. Sometimes, if you're Asian, you're allowed to see ghosts, but that's an Asian-only power.Now, I could be wrong, but I don't remember anyone going on a rampage of vengeance in The Tell-Tale Heart. In fact, as I recall, it's purely a tale of psychological horror. Tell Tale, on the other hand, is pretty much a Death Wish ripoff, with a few cheesy elements of Body Parts grafted on. There's also some filler side-stories involving a romance, a disabled daughter, and a dogged cop.Tell-Tale isn't all bad. It's actually fairly enjoyable, if you're willing to overlook the more clichéd, derivative elements and focus on what does work. In the end, it's basically just violent exploitation. If you're looking for something more than that, then I don't think you'll like Tell Tale very much. It has moments where it rises above that, but then it abandons them and sinks right back down again. As other reviewers have noted, it can be frustrating seeing the movie that could have been.

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.

***SPOILERS*** Updated version of Edger Allen Poe's 1843 horror classic the "Tell Tale Heart" the film "Tell-Tale" takes place in modern Providence Road Island involving heart transplant recipient Terry Bernard,Josh Lucas. Since his heart transplant Terry has been having nightmares of him being brutally murdered by a gang of home invaders together with his wife.It's when Terry is getting a checkup at the Providence Hospital where his heart transplant operation was preformed that he spies on his medical records telling him that the person who's heart was donated to him was murder victim Jean P. Viellard! It just so happens that the EMS worker who was at the scene of Viellard's murder was Kevin Stanovich, Jamie Harrold, who works in the very hospital where Terry got his heart transplant! Terry becomes so obsessed in finding out about the person who's heart is keeping him alive that he gets in touch with the detective in charge of the investigation of the Viellard murder Phil Van Doren, Brian Cox, whom as it later turns out knows a lot more about the case then his report on it indicates!In the film we also have Terry's seven year old daughter and the apple of his eye Angela, Beatrice Miller, who's suffering from an incurable bone disease who in all likeliness will not survive adulthood. There's also Terry's live-in girlfriend Elizabert Clemson, Lena Headly, a doctor at the Providence hospital where he was operated on. It's the sweet loving and caring Elizabeth who's been giving Terry the very vital emotional support that he needs to get over his obsession over who's heart, that's keeping him alive, it is that's pumping inside him.***SPOILERS*** As we and Terry soon find out the circumstances that lead to his heart transplant were not quite as simple as he at first imagined! He in fact got his heart through an underground criminal organ donation racket that originated right inside the hospital where he was a patient in! It was then that the mild mannered and wimp like Terry subconsciously tracked down those who murdered his heart donor and his wife and exacted brutal justice on them!***MAJOR SPOILER*** The biggest shock off all for Terry was saved for the end of the movie: In just who was unknowingly responsible for the Vieillard murders and the very sinister and selfish, as well as monetary, reasons behind them!P.S To show you just how incredibly tense and disturbing the film "Tell-Tale" really is at it's premier showing at the Tribica Cinima in New York City on April 24, 2009 a person watching the movie almost dropped dead from from sheer fright, he was later revived by members of a local hospital EMS unit, some 15 minutes before the movie Tell-Tale ended. This had the showing,together with the films surprise ending, postponed for some 90 minutes until the man, with the help of the EMS personnel, was able to regain consciousness!