Please don't spend money on this.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I didn't know anything about this film before finding it listed in the book of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was rated rather average by critics, but I was hoping it would deserve the book placing, from director Hal Hartley (Trust). Basically Josh Hutton (Robert Burke) has been released from prison, having served time for murder, and he returns to his home town in Long Island, where no-one is sure about the details of his crime, whether the rumours are exaggerated, but they are certainly wary of him. Audry Hugo (Waitress actress and director Adrienne Shelly) lives in the town and already has a boyfriend in high school, but she soon meets Josh, dumps her boyfriend, and starts seeing him as her new mystery man, ignoring the tale tales of his manslaughter, he also finds himself a job as a mechanic working for Audry's father Vic (Chris Cooke). The relationship between them is anything but normal, not just because of Josh's crime being the talk of the town, but because Audry is a successful and sought after fashion model, and also she has high paranoia about big issues, such as the nuclear war and a forthcoming apocalypse, and in the end it is her modelling and travelling to New York that will ultimately break them up. Also starring Julia McNeal as Pearl, Katherine Mayfield as Liz Hugo, Gary Sauer as Emmet, Mark Bailey as Mike, David Healy as Todd Whitbread, Matt Malloy as Otis and Edie Falco as Jane - The Waitress. Burke is pretty good being mysterious, Shelly is interesting as the dissatisfied and odd girl, and together their on screen relationship plays out oddly but is part of what keeps you watching, I didn't find myself laughing all that much, I think it was the eccentric characters and peculiar conversations that kept me going until the end, an alright comedy drama. Worth watching!

"The world's not going to end when so many people are making so much money!" says a single-minded, suburban blue-collar father to his nihilistic, fashion-model daughter, who would rather contemplate Armageddon than pursue a higher education. The emotional toll of such misplaced priorities is stylishly satirized in director Hal Hartley's debut feature, a small town mock-Gothic parody of skewed personal relationships in the money-hungry 1980s. The setting is ostensibly somewhere on Long Island, but from Hartley's perspective it all takes place in a slightly off-kilter universe, tracing the ripple effect caused by the return home of a handsome, taciturn ex-convict (and mass murderer?) who admits to no ambitions other than the Tao of auto mechanics, the discipline of celibacy, and a profound interest in the life of George Washington. It all adds up to nothing more than a deadpan shaggy dog joke, never going anywhere in particular but finally arriving at just the right destination, with help from some crisscrossing, crazy-yet-formal dialogue reminiscent at times of a Preston Sturges script adapted by Jim Jarmusch.

This was one of the most deeply awful movies I can recall ever seeing. It mixed high-dramaturgy with low production values and a sense of deep self-seriousness that makes it difficult for me to understand why people found it amusing. Poor acting, bad dialog, awkward blocking...where do I stop?And yet, I suppose that a few beers and some good friends could transform it into a bonding experience....

I can think of no construct of criteria by which one could measure "The Unbelievable Truth" and arrive at the conclusion that it is anything more than an utter waste of time. The believable truth about this flick is it is pure amateurish tripe. The unbelievable truth is that some people have found a basis for recommendation. (D-)