Messages Deleted (2010)

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This began as a very good idea, revenge on a plagiarist Professor.It, however, due to poor direction primarily I believe, turned into a cliché of a bad cliché of murder mysteries. The Protagonist Matthew Lillard as Professor Joel Brandt makes every mistake possible in his dealing with, not only Lavery and Breedlove, but his on again/off again Girlfriend as well as student Millie Counsel and news reporters who could have helped him champion his cause if he'd been a bit less brusque. In situations such as Brandt finds himself, brusqueness is perceived as 'hiding something'. The worst thing he did, from my perspective, is to not tell the investigators about the similarity between his manuscript "Senseless Killings" and the order and names of the victims, that was obvious (to me) the whole thrust of the series of killings. I'm assuming, at this point that he pilfered this idea from a student's work. Although, at the end, while he's discussing the deal with his agent, I was unconvinced that he had not, in reality, committed the crimes. SO I gave it a 7 instead of my original 5. I like tales that make me change my mind at times, much better than figuring the whole thing out before the drop of the first curtain.

Intriguing premise that takes a while to introduce itself to the viewer, once it does you find yourself interested to the point of staying in the room, however this soon changes as you begin to unravel the plot roughly 50 minutes before any of the characters become even close. It is another one of those 'thrillers' that does not thrill, the ones where the characters make inhuman, illogical decisions that are ridiculous to the point of shouting at the screen. On the more technical side, I found the camera angles annoying and distracting during several scenes at the beginning (as if the camera man is playing around with techniques they've only just picked up), it involves lots of people walking through the shot in front of characters in dialogue and bizarre instruments that automatically stop producing sound when not in shot. In summary this movie is infuriating with few redeeming features. It tries to be clever but fails miserably. Not worth watching.

What do you get if you cross several average actors,a 'witty' self-aware, self deprecating script and a bag full of clichés,acknowledged as being clichés by the script,making them super clichés?Robbed of an hour and a half,that's what.I've seen some bad films and often you can take the good from them and be pretty content.This film in no way offers anything even remotely close to redemption.....actually that's not entirely fair,it does.It ends.This movie should be used in a court of law to substantiate and complete the argument for euthanasia.Sticking to the old adage about ending positively I did take something from this film......I learnt never to go anywhere near any future project with anyones name attached from these credits.One star is the minimum I'm able to give this,but it's a little like saying that Hitler was just a bit naughty.

"Messages Deleted" is hyped by the fact that it is from the same writer as "Phone Booth" and "Cellular". Do not expect the same quality, because "Messages Deleted" has certainly it's flaws. The two leading actors both had their greatest success in the mid 90's: Matthew Lillard in "Scream" (1996) and Deborah Kara Unger in "The Game" (1997). Both were in ten movies or so since than, but none of them were really big hits, except for the "Scooby Doo" movies (Lillard). In general, the acting is OK but not great, a little unconvincing at times. The story is by-the-numbers at very far fetched. It gets more unbelievable by the minute and it is strange that the main character does not suspect the two friends around him for even a minute. Elements from "Basic Instinct" and "Secret Window" are put in the story but the result is far from exciting or suspenseful. The surprise ending won't be a real surprise for most people. Not an awfully bad movie, just very average and somewhat unsatisfying. Could have been so much better..