Messages Deleted (2010) User Reviews

Spiral Into Mediocrity...

[TheBeardedWonder · 6/10 · 11 December 2009]

Good to see Lillard in a horror movie again, shame it's this one. By no means a terrible movie, it's not great either. It starts with enough promise that you keep watching, hoping it will keep it up.

Unfortunately, it doesn't. It gets sillier and sillier until the easily foreseeable ending. As the title says, it suffers from the 'spiraling into mediocrity' syndrome, something many movies today seem to have. A writer had an interesting opener and premise, but had NO idea how to conclude it on the same level.

I'd give it a 6, but only because i'm a fan of low budget thrillers/horror movies. If you're not into the genre, you'd probably be better off skipping this one...

Stop saying "Cliché!" already...

[Roddenhyzer · 5/10 · 7 March 2011]

Alright, now, Larry Cohen's writing has always been hit-or-miss for me. I liked his "Maniac Cop" series, "It's Alive", "Phone Booth", and even "The Stuff" and "Uncle Sam", but for every enjoyable script he produces, there seems to be an equally awful follow-up, like "Captivity", or, well, this one.

The huge problem with "Messages Deleted" is how extremely desperate it is to come off as hip. It's laden with postmodern, self-aware babble about movie staples, story structure, clichés and so on. The main character writes screenplays and teaches scriptwriting in college; a fact that he won't *ever* shut up about. There is a tiny bit of character depth attempted when we see a few scenes of him caring for his demented father and being confronted with some sort of vaguely haunting past, but that's all ditched soon enough in favor of an endless stream of "I KNOW A LOT ABOUT STORYTELLING IN MOVIES! HEAR ME MAKE REFERENCES TO IT AND APPLY MOVIE ANALYSIS TO REAL LIFE!". Excuse the all-caps, but I'm trying to convey just how utterly annoying it is to listen to this gimmicky dialogue all the time, when it's neither natural, nor particularly insightful.

Regarding the storyline, all I can say is that for a movie that's so smugly obsessed with pointing the finger at "clichés" every chance it gets, it sure fails to steer clear of them itself. The whole thing is so bland, so mediocre, so utterly conventional that its self-aware pretense and attempted cleverer-than-thou attitude consistently fall flat. Even the core premise of a killer acting out a script is old and unimaginative. Not that it couldn't have been done well, but it's still a contributing factor to making this movie seem nowhere near as fresh as it wants to perceived.

Now, after all this misery, there's certainly a bit of salvageable material here. With the exception of Millie and Adam, all the characters are brought to life by pretty skilled actors. Matthew Lillard does a decent job walking the line between "I'm playing a serious character!" and "I'm friggin' Matthew Lillard!", and I always enjoy seeing a bit of Serge Houde, although he's merely the token douchebag cop in this one. Cinematography and editing are also competent enough, in my opinion, to elevate this movie from sub-par to average, but that's really as far as I'm willing to go.

In closing, "Messages Deleted" is a movie that's consistently stuck in an uncomfortable rut between making trite and often forced observations about the predictability of thriller movies, and conforming to those very conventions that make thriller movies predictable to begin with.

Senseless, Annoying and Absurd Thriller

[claudio_carvalho · 1/10 · 27 January 2012]

Joel Brandt (Matthew Lillard) is an efficient screen writing professor in the university but has never succeeded as a screenwriter. When Brandt receives a weird phone call asking for help, he believes that it is a prank of his best friend Adam Brickles (Michael Eklund) and he deletes the message. When he is having a conversation with his girlfriend Claire (Chiara Zanni) on the sidewalk of a bar, the body of the caller falls off a building in front of them on the sidewalk. Brandt tells to the Detective Lavery (Deborah Kara Unger) and Detective Breedlove (Serge Houde) that are in charge of the investigation about the call that he had received and he becomes a suspect.

When he receives another mysterious call from a woman also calling for help in his answering machine, he goes to the location and finds that she is dead. Brandt becomes the prime-suspect of Detectives Lavery and Breedlove when they find that the message was deleted from his answering machine. When Brandt discovers that the killer is following the only screenplay that he had sold to the cinema industry, "Senseless Killing", he tries to guess the next move of the serial-killer.

"Messages Deleted" is a senseless, annoying and absurd thriller about a screenwriter that is informed about murders that are following a screenplay that he had written stolen the idea from another screenplay.

Joel Brandt is irritating, hysterical, clumsy and imbecile, and takes all the possible wrong attitudes along the story. The plot is based on deleted messages in times when it is possible to have traceability of phone calls, technical means to retrieve a deleted message and surveillance (bugging) a phone number. The stupid open conclusion is never clear but the worst is the use of the word "cliché" along the story. The writer had the intention of making a cult-movie but unfortunately he has totally failed. My vote is one (awful).

Title (Brazil): "Mensagens Deletadas" ("Deleted Messages")

Not Worth watching

[jp_kc · 3/10 · 12 September 2010]

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 a disappointment...

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 21 June 2016]

I thought that MESSAGES DELETED was a very poor thriller. It's a Canadian film that looks and feels like a television movie, so stilted is the dialogue and watered-down are the thrills. The director, Rob Cowan, only ever shot this one film and for the rest of his career has worked as a producer, so I guess this was a case of him dipping his toes into the water and finding it too cold.

I've always liked Matthew Lillard as an actor - I remember him back in SERIAL MOM - but he can do little with his underwritten character here. Deborah Kara Unger (THE GAME) is on hand as a cop investigating a rather preposterous case, but she's a bore as well; this is a film where it feels like everybody left their talent at the door before the shoot.

It's doubly disappointing as the script was written by Larry Cohen, who once had a fine career as a director of quirky, low budget horror pictures like IT'S ALIVE. More recently Cohen has enjoyed some success with his scripts for PHONE BOOTH (which was great) and CELLULAR (which wasn't), but MESSAGES DELETED is bottom of the barrel stuff for him.

Cliché upon cliché

[norm-wilson · 7/10 · 4 November 2012]

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.

Not Larry Cohen's finest hour

[Wizard-8 · 27 June 2013]

Screenwriter Larry Cohen has over the past few decades churned out a number of screenplays that are offbeat and entertaining. However, not even Cohen is always perfect, and "Messages Deleted", which he scripted, is a big disappointment. The movie goes wrong in a number of ways. The main protagonist is a big turn-off - he's annoying in ways that are not interesting, and it's hard to be on his side as his predicament gets worse. He's also stupid, doing things no person of reasonable sense would do that get him further in trouble. Though the police are also stupid as well, missing some obvious clues that would show them that the protagonist is innocent of the charges against him. The movie has passable production values for a low budget independent Canadian production, but you don't go to a movie just for that.

Clichéd

[jee-devraj · 3/10 · 5 June 2011]

A movie that starts off with a mockery of clichés and then goes on to show that it contains each one of them. There is blood, there is a workaholic cop, a struggling professional in a dysfunctional relationship who realizes he cares for his girl in the moment of crisis, the prodigal protégé' and a "twist" that could be spotted from the moon. I had narrowed down on the eventual villain 20 mins into the movie, and so will you.

Performances are forgettable, a very lame and unconvincing attempt by the actors to show sexual tension between their respective characters, and its as if death, even of your loved ones, can be forgotten in a matter of minutes.

I am not even writing this review properly, coz seriously, even trashing this movie seems like a waste of time. You wanna stay away from this one, trust me.

One big Cliché

[jojosimien14 · 6/10 · 24 July 2012]

I ran across this film on netflix and the description pulled me in. This film would have received a 7/10 instead of a 6 if it had not been so busy pointing out the clichés that every horror film has, then doing that cliché themselves moments later. It tried so hard to make itself stand out from other horror films by bashing them for clichés that it winds up just like them. The acting was pretty good, but the story was pretty basic. I know a lot of people didn't like it, but to me the ending was nice. Sure I would have liked to know exactly what took place, but it gave me and the people I watched it with something to discuss after wards. If you have some time to kill go and watch this movie, but don't expect it to be a hidden horror gem. There are no jumping out of your seat moments and most of the time you can guess what will happen next, but still a very watchable movie.

Awful

[iainmcleod_800 · 2/10 · 14 April 2020]

Im sorry but this was terrible. Watched it because im on lockdown, but what could have been so good was terrible. Police characters were a joke. Ending awful. Obvious who killer was after 20 mins. Just a waste of time. Not 1 star because matthew lillard was ok

A Diamond in The Rough

[mrcodymulhall · 9/10 · 11 December 2009]

I had very low expectations going into this movie. It has absolutely no marketing or buzz factor (hence I am the first to review it on IMDb) and Matthew Lillard seems to be beyond his prime. Although the plot seemed very original and intriguing. After watching the film, I must admit I am hungry for more. The ideas are unique and the the story is beyond catchy. Without giving away spoilers, the story reminded me of looking at a photograph within a photograph. At first glance it seems too abstract to be realistic but once you uncover the idea behind it you are left memorized. Lillard gave a stunning performance beyond what I thought he was capable of. It's not just a slasher horror, yet an intense mystery thriller that could have twisted in any way, shape or form towards the end. After everything unraveled I found myself wanting to watch it again to full grasp the plot in a new light. Here we have a prime example of true film screen magic where it does not take a hundred plus million dollar budget or an A-list actor/actress in order to entertain. I give this movie a strong recommendation for anyone who appreciates it's respected genre and the art of film in general.

Good thriller.

[teodoramonika · 7/10 · 2 August 2022]

7/10.

I thought it would be a boring movie, but to my surprise it was very tense and exciting and not at all predictable.

It's good, recommended. Look.

The movie tells you what type of movie you are watching.

[Healing_Process · 4/10 · 7 August 2012]

Here we have a movie written by Larry Cohen, a man obsessed with phones. This movie is a true B list movie. It is a cliché thriller which likes to point out and almost humiliate itself for being a cliché thriller. Matthew Lillads acting in the movie was very well done in comparison with how the movie represented itself. The movie showed no signs of severe bad directed,writing, or acting but also did not show signs of it being phenomenal either which is why I gave it a 5/10. The events that confused the "Protagonist" and twisted the view of who was the killer was quite creative and I give props to Larry on that. Other than that you will get your usual thrilleresque type storyline with a suspenseful feeling of "who did it"I would recommend this movie if you are a thriller fanatic or you need a nice background to waste some time.

Believable if movie was placed in the mid-90's

[mgseries · 2/10 · 23 February 2010]

If the movie was released sometime between the moment everyone have a cellphone in the 90's and the beginning of police forensics like in the "CSI" TV Series, I would have certainly enjoy this movie.

Movie started good, until the first murder. Detectives are there, but there's no forensics work at all to find out clues about the suspects, no fingerprints verification, no phone records verification, just suspicions and coincidence that Joel appeared on the 2nd crime scene, and listening to the message on Claire's answering machine: "That's our guy! Release the suspect!"

I mean, c'mon, he's a professor at University, he should know better about all the common errors which leads to getting caught, but he just do everything for evidence to lead to him, despite above mentioned sloppy detective work.

Also, after the 2nd murder, why didn't he activate the function to forward all his calls to his cellphone? When a stranger is in a hurry to go to the airport but reluctantly give you a half-way lift for 100$, WHY would you trust that person to wait for you, regardless how much you give him?

Something that ticked me off, back at Millie's place, it is mentioned the original script was reflecting reality, and page 76, it is what's happening now. But Joel wasn't a bit curious to read further in order to figure out what's gonna happen next and find ways to avoid everything bad in the script.

Avoid this movie, unless you're bored and have nothing else to watch but a light crime movie like this one. I originally give it a 1 out of 10, but I'll give a 2 instead for Gina Holden and Chiara Zanni.

Pleeeeeease.Let it end.

[trioval · 1/10 · 6 March 2010]

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.

Bearable but very predictable

[gordon-1992 · 3/10 · 5 July 2011]

This movie for me is something that is bearable to watch, but also at the same time very predictable from pretty much the start of the film.

I rented this movie out of the local shop after being very interested by the synopsis at the back. I have to say that my expectations were not met.

From the start, when the professor was debating with his student (that one student who was the only one he seemed to talk to) the average viewer would have realised then that she was the one who was killing all these people. This was confirmed for me when he gave her the keys to the storage room.

For me this film is bearable, something to watch if you are feeling bored on a rainy day, but it certainly wouldn't be in a list of "movies to have a few beers with mates and sit and watch" because while there are is an occasional funny moment, the movie is ruined by being far far far too predictable.

Rating the movie out of 10, I would give it a 3 out of 10. One that was bearable only because I was bored. I certainly wouldn't watch it again.

Rehash

[paul_beard-11555 · 2/10 · 13 September 2020]

The whole film talks about stealing scripts and how bad films have cliches. Ok I get that it's mocking the whole industry but it feels like the writers themselves have stolen and mildly rehashed secret window staring Johnny depp. If I wasn't so bored and looking for films to watch I'd of switched it off earlier.

Brilliant

[swedishfishhaveaccents · 10/10 · 23 December 2012]

This is amazing. Mocks clichés and then becomes them (intentionally and wittily) and eventually points out clichés are fairly accurate. The acting was great, the characters (except maybe one) very very believable and the plot fantastic and creative. You think you know who the killer is (it's really a pool of two or three people) but then you're unsure again and second-guess yourself right until the end. Everything that is said or done near the beginning of the movie is somehow incorporated by the end in a brilliant manner. The whole time you don't quite know what is going on and want to know immediately, to find out who did it

And at the end... you're still left uncertain what actually happened

Just a good movie with unexpected but not bad end

[psofakisxristos · 4/10 · 16 April 2020]

It was a really good movie until the last scene which for me destroyed my good opinion that I had! The way that movie was evolving it wasn't something special but I didn't get bored!

Messages UN - Deleted!

[Atomic_Peace · 8/10 · 17 June 2012]

This movie was great! Mathew Lillard has really been a hit & miss with me in the past, but he was great in this thing! The story tells the story of Joel Brandt ( Mathew Lillard ), a failing screenwriter who is ironical a screen writing professor at a local college. One day after a long day of work he goes home to check his messages. He gets scared after receiving a call from Jeremy Potter, a man he's never met, is begging for his help. Thinking it is his buddy Adam ( Michael Ekland ) he calls him up and he says he didn't call him, he takes it as a crank phone call. But events leading up after the call prove it may have not've been a crank call. Easily the movie is 8/10 it wasn't amazing but a great watch for the group!