Catfish (R) ★★★
If a film like Catfish was able to give me the creeps then I guess anybody can make a movie with their hand held camera and hope for the best- didn't The Blair Witch Project prove that? Then again, the filmmakers of this finely tuned documentary hit a kind of gold mine with their story of a buddy -Lev Schulman- adding a "friend" on Facebook and forming an unlikely online bond with the entire family, including a hot stepdaughter that he ends up having online hookups with.
This being the Internet, I suppose there is always a downside to a story such as this one and boy is it ever a downside as our boy Lev finds out as the story goes along.The first 2/3 of the movie have a Hitchockian vibe that literally had me hanging on every word, then of course...well I won't spoil it for you but suffice to say that they try to put a moral to their story at its conclusion, that the film ends up falling apart and dragging its ass down to the final credits. Too bad cause I kinda dug the buildup that director Ariel Schulman -Lev's brother- brought to the surroundings.
You can call this the other Facebook movie -along with The Social Network- and because we live in a Facebook dominated society, the relevance brought in is justifiably suited for our needs and wants of the moment. Will it be this gripping 10 years from now? I really don't know but for the time being, at its best Catfish gives the viewer a real treat in trying to figure out its mysterious ways.
However, don't think of it as high art or resonant stuff- on the contrary, it's a movie that doesn't have much of a face and rather focuses on its highly interesting concept. Unlike quite a few people out there in the blogosphere, I do believe this was pure fact and the filmmakers didn't make up any bit of it but if only they did- its conclusion would have been slightly more interesting to watch unravel.
Cruise was being interviewed by Pat McAfee on his show Tuesday afternoon (via THR), where they discussed the the “Days of Thunder” sequel, which starts production soon, and, of course, the merger.