Monday, August 11, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

19

ARTS IN BRIEF
Film
New French
thriller excels
"Tell No One"
Music Box Films
"Tell No One" is a thriller
without explosions, without
seductive blondes and merci-
fully free of clich6 secret agents.
Unadorned, captivatingly com-
plex and replete with genuinely
powerful acting, it's intense
without seeming to try.
In French with English subti-
tIes, "Tell No One" was released
in its native country in 2006,
Although it's set in Paris, you
won't see any gratuitous shots
of the Eiffel Tower or other
famous landmarks - it's too
focused on maintaining tight,
realistic suspense to throw in
such unnecessary flourishes.
Alexandre Beck (Francois
Cluzet, "Janis and John") lives
a quiet, rather mournful life as
a doctor in a Paris hospital. The
movie begins with the anni-
versary of his wife Margot's
murder, which took place eight
years earlier. A chance occur-
rence - the excavation of two
dead men near Alexandre's wil-
derness property - prompts a
chain of events punctuated by a
shocking and foreboding e-mail
from Alexandre's dead wife,
played by Marie-Josee Croze
("The Diving Bell and the But-
terfly"). Alexandre, convinced
that his wife is somehow alive,
undertakes a frantic and pain-
fully believable search for the
only woman he's ever loved.
The film's complications
are too engrossing to entirely
reveal, but there are many. The
characters, all strikingly well-
acted, deepen the intrigue:
Bruno, an old friend of Alex-
andre, lends him a hand from
under the protective umbrella
of crime and Margot's father, a
retired policeman, knows more
than he should.
But the most impressive
aspect of "Tell No One" may be
its ability to weave such a baf-
fling tale while remaining com-
prehensible and even gripping.
You may not always understand,
but neither does Alexandre, and
it never once loses its punch in
the midst of the mystery.
BEN VANWAGONER

Overpraised stoners

Slacker comedy
with a low I.Q.
By IMRAN SYED
DailyArts Writer
With the possible exception of
"Harold and Kumar: Escape from
Guantanamo Bay," never has a
movie about potheads acting like
potheads drawn as much serious
consideration
from critics
as "Pineapple *i
Express."Itturns
out, though, that Pineapple
this latest release Express
from the brain
trust of Judd At Quality16
Apatow and com- andShowcase
pany-producers Sony
of such comedic
hits as "The 40-
Year-Old Virgin,"
"Knocked Up" and "Superbad" -
didn't deserve any of that attention.
Lame, juvenile and often utterly
incomprehensible, "Pineapple
Express" should serve as a warn-
ing of what happens when we give
any filmmaker more credit than he
deserves.
Seth Rogen ("Knocked Up") co-
wrote and stars in the film as Dale
Denton, an average pothead who

"Duuude, we're, like, the next DeNiro and Pacino."

has the misfortune of witnessing
a drug-related murder. On the run
from a drug lord looking to silence
any witnesses, Dale turns to his pot
dealer Saul (James Franco, "Spider-
man 3") for help. They run, hide
and smoke before deciding to take
a stand. In the process they learn
many lessons, chief among them
that being high all the time might
just be the one thing holding them
back in life.

For what it aims to be - a stoner
comedy with no real point - "Pine-
apple Express" can't really fail.
It's reasonably goofy, and Franco
brings an odd likability to the deal-
er character. Rogen is as pleasant
a slacker as you might remember
from "Knocked Up," and the film
manages a few laughs with its out-
landish, almost satirical setup as an
action movie. It's a movie you might
see on a slow Tuesday night with

your high school buddies and laugh
over before regretting what a waste
of time it was.
Thus, the film falls well short
of justifying the perpetual smoke
of credibility that seems to shroud
every Apatow production. Through
no fault of their own, Apatow,
Rogen and theic frequent collabo-
rators (Jonah Hill and Evan Gold-
berg among them) are constantly
See PINEAPPLE, Page 11


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