User reviews

This is a fantastic, well paced movie. For just under 90 minutes not a single scene is wasted. Give it a watch!

It has a lot of plot twists, but i'm kinda disappointed with the ending :(

Everyone can relate to this is some way. You wouldn't think it to be true but it is. Loved the actors in it. They were believable and very human. I recommend this!

'Don't Tell a Soul' is something similar to what I would produce if I ever wrote a screenplay I suspect. I would just think "what is the most interesting thing that could happen next?" and then write it, with no regard for whether that is consistent with the story or the characters. There are some truly baffling character decisions in this film. The tempo switches and the changing of motives is almost impossible to keep up with. It's a shame because it truly hampers a film that, if handled the write way, had some real potential.

The film digs itself a bit of a hole (so to speak) early on and I don't think they knew how to dig their way out of it realistically. There's an interesting premise set up, but the logical next step to push the story along isn't a logical step. From there the story and character arcs all just go out of the window and the film falls apart. Where Mena Suvari's character for example ends up is about as ridiculous of a thing as I've seen in a film.

I wanted to like 'Don't Tell a Soul' but it just never clicked for me. Even at a very short 83 minutes it still feels like it drags on a little. Rainn Wilson is always fun to watch in anything he does, and there's the odd curve-ball in the mix that is a bit of fun, but overall this film didn't work for me at all.

Almost everyone's heard of characters you love to hate.

Problem is, not all of us love it.

The character of Matt, the older brother, made it REALLY difficult for me to enjoy most of this movie. He's such an unmitigated pile of rancid human garbage.... Every time I saw his face or heard his voice, I just thought, "Would you please just eff off and die already?" (That said, it would be a terrible sin against Fionn Whitehead to omit mention of what an excellent job he does playing this character. He's 97% as believable as he is despicable. I think the other 3% can be explained if we assume Fionn is just a generally nice guy who deep down doesn't understand people like Matt. Unfortunately they do exist. Anyway, here's hoping Fionn does more work like his brilliant performance in the Black Mirror special Bandersnatch.)

Thankfully the younger brother Joey is really the main character, so we spend more time with him than with the trashstorm that is his brother. Joey really is a good kid without any adequate role models, struggling to figure out how one goes about being a good person in a world that's mean as hell. If there's any compelling reason to watch this movie, it's the character of Joey.

The plot is relatively thin (which should be obvious; it's a movie about a boy talking to a guy down a hole) but what is there mostly works. It's only toward the end that it starts to push the limits of credibility.

Bottom line, a fair character study of a good boy in a bad world, and an effective psychodrama. Just don't expect satisfaction, and don't be surprised if Matt brings your blood to a rolling boil.

The story started out fine but quickly spirals south. The characters make very dumb decisions that no one would really do if they were under the same conditions. I just think the screen writers just didn't know what they were doing. It felt like they didn't have the character arcs and the story well laid before the cameras began rolling. They just wrote in twists for the sake of subverting expectations but without a well laid out plan.

I am also very disappointed with Mena Suvari acting performance. It was seriously bad. She was the weakest actor of the whole cast.

Anyway, to summarize this film. I would say the main idea of this film would be, "The apples don't fall far from the tree". In the end, all of the main characters were rotten. Even the younger boy, Joey.

Zero expectations going into this, I just happened to see the disc on the shelf, saw Rainn Wilson in it and had to give it a go. Sadly, it lives down to those expectations pretty well. It's an interesting enough premise, two kids running from someone and that someone crashes through a covered well and is trapped. Now those kids have an ethical dilemma, help the guy but then probably get busted for the things they were up to or let him rot and face the moral consequences. It's the kind of movie I would love to see take a narrow focus, barely leaving the sight of incident, a dialogue heavy back and forth, a game of cat and mouse while the trapped tries to talk the boys into helping him...

That is so not this movie. Of course there just has to be a twist at the end and I found it pretty obnoxious and fairly obvious as the movie progressed. Beyond that though, it really falls hard into one of the more annoying tropes of recent years. That of utterly sadistic, murderous demon-children. Not just a bully, but a prepubescent serial killer. In this instance, it also happens to be the kid's brother and it's just so obnoxious to have a prominent character with his only defining trait being that he's a monstrous hellspawn. The movie attempts to deal with this somewhat, but it lacks the conviction to actually stick the landing.

All in all, this feels like a tv mainstay just waiting for circulation. It's not aggressively bad, it just lacks the follow through to really hit the good bits.

I wasn't expecting much going in to this, the plot description seemed a bit thin but the twists in the story were really unexpected and kept me entertained throughout. It is a dark film hence not the highest rating and not usually my style but I give it an 8 for its original story and emotional rollercoaster this film provides. Well worth a watch, glad i watched it even if it was deep and one of the most original films I have watched this year. But ps don't tell a soul

This is a one and done for me. It was entertaining and confusing at the end. Who does that??? Seriously, who??? :o Kinda like watching a half decent Lifetime movie.

Simple but effective story that has you hooked mainly as all the actors put in a first class performance. Rainn Wilson in particular is spectacular as usual.

A few twists and turns in this movie. Some good one liners that made it funny. But overall, the movie was ok.

This is a story of two brothers, the older one of whom is a homicidal maniac, who rob 10,000 that just happens to be sitting in a very vulnerable spot for some unknown reason. They are out in the woods, and the money is in a tent that is being fumigated it seems.

When they leave, they're in the middle of the woods, and for some reason a security guard appears and chases them.

This basically comes down to a "one character" in Hell story. The younger brother is surrounded by maniacs wherever he goes. The story is through his eyes, and that's fair, because he does have to make difficult decisions.

Any more would be a spoiler. Suffice to say, this is unfortunately set in what is supposed to be a real world, but it's more a Twilight Zone arena. However, if we're seeing it through the eyes of the one interesting character, then that suffices if one doesn't expect too much.

The biggest problem is that the writer sets this in Louisville, and he's obviously oblivious to Louisville. There is NOWHERE in Louisville that is this isolated. Louisville is too densely populated throughout to have an open woods arena that no one ventures into. It just cannot happen. The parks in Louisville are hardly what can be called "parks". They're crowded beyond redemption. Even the less traveled ones don't have the solitude needed for this story line. You have to go at least 20 miles outside the county to have a longshot chance for that.

Still, there are maniacs like the older brother, sadists who look for excuses to hurt others, abounding in Louisville, so that much is true.

The plot is very easily written. The whole situation though could have been fixed so easily and early on. I understand it's a movie and I'm sure there's a lot of kids out there that actually would have been able to put them selves in a similar stupid selfish situation without thinking out a solution. And that's what bothers me the most, how is it possible to put yourself in this situation? Get a rope, get a ladder for him. Run off. He wouldn't have been able to catch up because of his ancle anyways. Or call someone anonymous and give the police or another friend a tip that someone yelled help from the woods or admit finding someone in the well. Sooo many options. That could have been done within the first hours. And still none was made.

Another film that people rate WAY to low, it's a low budget thriller and delivers on everything a suspense thriller should. Also features outstanding acting by the whole cast, believable story and was well directed. Some of the story line was a little weak but it all comes together in the end. I just dont get people anymore that 2nd Borat film was absolutely horrible and yet it scores higher than this well made ACTUAL MOVIE!!!!!!

Started with a good set up. It did feed in some interesting progressions, Jack Dylan Grazer as the younger brother was really good, as was Rainn Wilson, The older Brother didn't work. Something something broken family? Mena Suvari was average, and the ending didn't work at all.

I'm not sure what they were going for, - A sad broken family with a history of violence? Whatever it was it didn't land and then the ending made the previous 80 mins less of a journey.

Enjoyed watching this movie although it was predictable in some parts

Great up until the plot twist then it just gets ridiculous beyond belief.