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Tape (2001)

Rate: 8
Viewed: 7/26

7/26: Richard Linklater is an awful director, but he was lucky to land a very strong script by Stephen Belber, that's based on his own play, for Tape.

Such "feeling it out in one room" pictures tend to be the pits because of inferior writing and lack of interest in the topic. The initial conversation in Tape had me sold in spite of it sounding akin to a couple of losers going in circles while standing on a corner. Instead of faltering, it kept getting better and better.

Robert Sean Leonard and Uma Thurman are generally fine, but it's Ethan Hawke who's so good that he should've been Oscar-nominated. To be fair, he was for another film called Training Day, but his performance in Tape is better with priceless reactions and comeback lines. His character is simply an extension of Troy Dyer in Reality Bites: too cool and above all in life. I knew somebody who was exactly like him, and to my no surprise, he died of a drug overdose in his late 30's.

I was thinking of giving Tape a '9' for a long while, but the payoff ultimately proves to be disappointing. That's why Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Bug are masterpieces. There has to be a big finale that makes sitting through the conversations worthwhile. Instead, I was left with a "That's it?" feeling.

All in all, Tape is full of rich dialogue, and Ethan Hawke takes it further with his superlative performance.

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