Tape

Another quickie guerrilla movie spawn of the digital video age, Tape is a real-time, cheaply shot, three-character drama about a pair of former high school buddies holed up in a motel room pushing each other's buttons because one (Ethan Hawke) has never gotten over the fact that ten years ago the other (Robert Sean Leonard) slept with his girlfriend. Pointed questions lead to accusations of rape, which Leonard does not defend to Hawke's satisfaction, and the situation becomes even more tense when the girl in question (Uma Thurman) shows up as an unwitting part of Hawke's cathartic trap. While director Richard Linklater's hand-held vérité, seat-of-his-pants style serves the story well, the one-room structure almost single-handedly sinks the film because the more uncomfortable the characters become, the more distracted the viewer gets wondering why nobody just ups and leaves. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Blackwelder)