while the film world awaits what sounds like a daring experiment from director richard linklater -- the animated waking life , coming in october -- the filmmaker attempts to hold us over with tape , a failure of a low-budget project if ever there was one . the movie is shot on video and confined to a single motel room , for the entirety of its real-time , 84-minute length . with such restrictive parameters self-imposed on a feature , success really must lie in creative direction , acting power , and a solid screenplay . all three are non-existent here . tape is based on a play by stephen belber , and the playwright contributes the clunky script , full of obvious dialogue and silly posturing . with one strike already against them , the experienced , name cast ( hawke , leonard , and thurman ) then take the problem a step further , apparently not realizing that performances need to be taken down a notch on video , as the medium tends to overexpose every movement and moment . ( while thurman's performance is good , the trio need to watch brad anderson's session 9 for a good example of subtle acting on video . ) hawke , linklater's before sunrise star , is vince , a manipulative , possibly violent drug dealer who's reuniting with leonard's johnny , ten years after their questionable friendship in high school . johnny is in town to premiere his first film in a local festival , and they convene in vince's seedy , low-key motel room . through some poorly delivered dialogue -- although much of it can't be saved from the page anyway -- we learn of vince's problematic tendencies and johnny's existence as a self-proclaimed goody-two-shoes , high on moral fiber and good intentions . when vince pushes johnny's buttons in just the right way , a revelation surfaces , steeped in jealousy and revenge . fellow classmate thurman is then thrown into the mix , as is , unfortunately for her , the motel room . it must be quite a challenge adapting a stage play to the screen , as many plays can be painfully static in comparison to the cinematic rhythms of a film . one would think that camera movement and placement could truly turn a " stagy " setup into a visually intriguing film ( lumet's deathtrap comes to mind , as do the warehouse scenes in tarantino's reservoir dogs ) . so it's quite a disappointment to see linklater's direction of tape alternate between being stale and cliché . when he's not spending too much time sitting on one shot -- trying to be kind of video " underground " , i guess -- he's pulling off annoying swish pans between hawke and leonard while they argue , trying way too hard to force some urgency . hawke's performance reeks of exaggeration , and leonard would appear to be a plain-old bad actor . he barely gets into the role , looking as if he were auditioning for the school play . the plaintive , wimpy , holier-than-thou stance that he applies to johnny comes off as being not only annoying , but wholly stilted . i kept hoping for vince to sock john in the face , but alas , it never happens . things perk up when uma thurman's amy joins the fray , not only because it highlights the smartest points of the script , but because thurman's performance is the richest of the three . she plays it naïve , mysterious , and collected , and it helps push through the finale -- a finale which linklater and belber surely think is cooler than it actually is . reviewed as part of our 2001 boston film festival coverage ( feature story coming soon ) . 
