Movie Review: Tape (2001) (Richard Linklater)

... Before Sunset, Before Sunrise and then TAPE!! Richard Linklater does have a good eye for sinewy themes. TAPE at best can be summarised as an intensely riveting psychological exciter....a thought provoking and 'timeless' piece of art.

It's been a long wait for a movie to come up with such a finer dissective portrayal of the complexities involved in the nuances of human relationships..... The script has been amazingly fine tuned to capture the raw power of dug-up ethical dilemmas. Seemingly commonplace feelings (acts) transcribed to words in the right way carry so much of weightage, when it comes to impacting the viewer!! EXCEPTIONAL screenplay and effortless direction!!

Admirers of Before Sunset and Before Sunrise shouldn't give this a miss. While those were romantically and intellectually spellbinding, Tape shows what it is like to get under a feverish grip of stimulatingly thrilling conversations engineered on differing perspectives. That it takes place in a claustrophobic room with just three characters slowly emerging as complete personalities with multi dimensional colorings, and still does not for a moment let you take your eyes off the screen says it all.

The movie takes place in a seedy motel room where two friends, one a drug dealer with issues and another a budding film maker, get together one night and eventually start reminiscing the nostalgic memories of their college days. Past demons are confronted, accusations are traded, and each launches into aggrandizing justifications. Enter the femme fatale in question, and the momentum snowballs into a jaw dropping climax!

The only three actors of the movie, Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard (remember these two buddies from Dead Poets Society?) and Uma Thurman effortlessly slip into their characters and do a complementary job. The premise is intimidating at first, but it takes just a little bit of adjusting initially. Once you force yourself to sit through the first ten minutes of the movie, what unfolds on the screen magically carries you through the rest of the 75 minute duration!! A must watch for dilettantes.

Well, in Tennis' parlance, watching the unfolding of TAPE is the equivalent of seeing Roger Federer display the complete range of shots in his divine arsenal much to a connoisseur's delight!!