The Unsaid
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Movie Reviews of The Unsaid
Movie Review: Don Davis is the man!
Summary: 4 Stars
Why wasn't the SOUNDTRACK ever released? This picture has one of the best scores I have ever heard!! The music is so powerful, passionate, and emotional that it really compliments the film well. To me, this score ranks right up there with the works of Thomas Newman, Angelo Badalamenti, Ennio Morricone, Basil Poledouris, James Horner, and others. I have searched around, and haven't found a copy of this score to buy anywhere! If anyone has any info on the soundtrack, please make a post here, or email me at MJWolf0624@aol.com. I sure hope this gets officially realed sometime! I'd give the soundtrack itself 5 stars.Movie Review: Great flick-too often overlooked
Summary: 4 Stars
Wow, just watched this yesterday for the first time. Wish I had taken the time to watch it sooner. Garcia does a grand job and all the different plot twists are well done also. The ending-a shocker. The soundtrack to this movie is really outstanding,Don Davis's best in my opinion, so put it all together and its one to watch and listen to more than once. I'll be keeping this one for my collection. Also has DTS for anyone interestedMovie Review: well done
Summary: 4 Stars
A well made film with good performances dealing with a difficult subject. This psychological thriller is compelling and realistic. Difficult to watch at times because of what the characters go through, emotionally as well as physically. The scenes are well staged and well edited.Movie Review: A flawed script that derails Andy Garcia's fine performance
Summary: 3 Stars
Relatively early on in "The Unsaid," psychiatrist Michael Hunter (Andy Garcia) gives a lecture at his alma mater where he explains that sometimes a person experiences something so horrible that they make up a fake memory to cover it up. Although Hunter is speaking to students and colleagues, we in the audience know that we should be taking notes as well and that this theory is a vital clue to unraveling the mystery of the movie. The problem is that despite some feints in other directions, the clue is to be applied to the case of Thomas Caffey (Vincent Kartheiser), who is about to become of age and unless some body comes up with a good reason is about to be released from state care.
What horrible crime did Thomas commit? Nothing. The story is that he came home and found that his father (Sam Bottoms) had murdered his mother (Sarah Deakins), and was traumatized by the experience. Barbara Wagner (Teri Polo), a former student of Hunter's, persuades him to look at Thomas' case. Hunter has not taken any clients in the three years since his son committed suicide and Thomas looks enough like his son to get things jumbled in the psychiatrist's mind. This is dangerous and unethical, but this is movie so we are not concerned with such things.
That is good, because Thomas becomes involved with Shelly Hunter (Linda Cardnellini), the psychiatrist's estranged daughter. The death of his son destroyed his marriage, and in his pain and despair Hunter ignored his surviving child. But putting his own house in order never occurs to Hunter and Thomas is able to get some information from Shelly that allows him to play his own games during the therapy sessions. Now, this could be interesting, even though Thomas does not seem smart enough to really take advantage of it. Thomas clearly has a dark secret and the clenched fist he keeps making when people say the wrong thing to him speaks to a potential for violence. It is just a question of when he will explode.
What sinks "The Unsaid" is both the setup for the big payoff and the big payoff itself. One of the girls from Shelly's school is murdered and the police are sniffing around the facility Thomas is kept in. Then there is Shelly's ex-boyfriend, who tends to get drunk and angry, especially when Thomas gets in the way. You expect this bad blood to come to blows and it sort of does, but we do not really know. If at the end of a film you cannot tell if the red herrings were red herrings or not, then there are some major problems. But the fatal blow is when we find out (dramatic pause) the truth. What was "unsaid" finally gets said, but we do not really get to hear it and when we find out the big dark secret I am perfectly willing to admit that I never saw this coming. But, on the other hand, I would never want to see that coming.
Garcia turns in a fine performance and works hard to keep everything together, but this screenplay really does not play fair with the audience. Not only does Thomas have something that is unsaid with regards to the death of his mother, so does Hunter in terms of the suicide of his son. This is really fool me twice territory, and really underscores that this psychiatrist should not be seeing this patient. Again, I might forgive such dramatic manipulations if the payoff was worth it, but beyond the sheer shock value I do not think that it was and it cheapens the entire film.
Movie Review: Bleah.
Summary: 2 Stars
The Unsaid (Tom McLoughlin, 2001)
Here's a rule of thumb for you: any time the description of a piece of media, be it a book, a movie, a radio program, a scribble, what have you, begins with the words "in the tradition of," that piece of media is going to be bad. Very, very bad. Still, I was overly fond of Andy Garcia (before he got mixed up with Steven Soderbergh, anyway), so I had to see this movie. Which is "in the tradition of Primal Fear", according to the box. Ay caramba.
Garcia plays Michael Hunter, a therapist who goes into early retirement after the suicide of his son and the breakup of his family, coming into public only for the odd lecture now and then. After one of them, he is approached by Barbara Wagner (Teri Polo of The West Wing), a former student of his now a caseworker, and asks him to look over the case of a teenage boy who has everyone but her fooled. You know where this is going, right?
To its credit, I did see a few places where it looked as if it were going to veer off into the territory of slick, complex psychological thriller. It manages to avoid doing so, however, at every turn. The film makes regular reference to Thomas (Angel's Vincent Kartheiser) resembling Hunter's son Kyle, and at one point, it looks as if Thomas is going to try and play on that. There's one reference...and then that entire line of thinking disappears from the script. It's as if they tried to do it one way, decided to do it another way, didn't quite get everything revised out of the script from the first way, and then failed to catch the error. At least, I hope that's the case; if it was actually meant to come off like this, screenwriter Miguel Tejada-Flores' heart wasn't really in it. (After checking his recent credits, which include such timeless fare as Darkness and Rottweiler, however, I find I could also be incorrect in that. He could, really, just be that bad.)
There is a rule I have with "In the tradition of..." films most of the time: you're better off watching the movie that the coattail-riding dog is in the tradition of. In this case, the rule holds up. Maybe even better than most times. Garcia isn't enough to save this one. There's some serious eye candy in the triple-threat of Polo, a young Linda Cardellini, and Chelsea Field, but that's about it. * ½