Tape

Director:  Richard Linklater
Year Released:  2001
Rating:  2.0

Linklater, bored from waiting for Waking Life to get finished, filmed this (pretty quickly, I'm thinking): a play about regression. Juvenile Hawke reunites with high school bud Robert Sean Leonard in a sleazy hotel room to air grievances from the past about the alleged 'date rape' that occurred between Leonard and Uma Thurman's character during their senior year; Hawke has not let go of the flame for Uma, so to speak, and wants Leonard to apologize to her. For Linklater's rapid editing and Hawke's bounciness, the dialogue is puerile (perhaps fittingly, but still bothersome) and the denouement, with Thurman having the final say, doesn't feel natural (it prompted me to complain, alone, to my television set, "Oh, come on").

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