Tell No Lies – TUBI Review (2/5)

TELL NO LIES on TUBI is a new thriller inspired by true events. The very same true crime featured in the Netflix docu-series American Nightmare. Well, until the final act which ruins everything. Read our full Tell No Lies (2024) movie review here!

TELL NO LIES is a new TUBI Original. It’s a thriller with a story that will be very familiar if you’ve watched the Netflix documentary series American Nightmare. And if you haven’t then you really need to. It’s crazy yet very true!

WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Check out the true story on Netflix in American Nightmare >

This new TUBI thriller “inspired” by that true crime is also very crazy in the final act. So much so that it felt exploitive and just gross. In fact, the ending of Tell No Lies ruined the movie for me with its overly soapy approach.

Continue reading our Tell No Lies (2024) movie review below. Find it on TUBI from January 18, 2024.

Tell No Lies inspired by American Nightmare

The official plot references a husband and wife situation, but this is not the case at all. The story focuses on Sofia Rose and her on-off boyfriend, Ben. A small detail perhaps, but quite relevant to the story it turns out.

The new TUBI movie Tell No Lies is very clearly inspired by the events covered in the Netflix docu-series American Nightmare. The movie also has the “Inspired by True Events”-label right after the title card that comes after the opening scene.

However, even if you miss this “true events” hint at first, you will think of American Nightmare as soon as the kidnapping happens. Virtually everything about the crime is taken directly from what we hear in the documentary.

Yes, right down to the blacked-out goggles and the woman being kidnapped and taken to another location. It is so directly based on these events that the ending of this TUBI Original becomes a slap in the face of the real-life victims.

The ending of Tell No Lies on TUBU

I won’t sugarcoat the fact that I hated the ending of Tell No Lies on TUBI. As closely as the movie follows the true crime that it’s “inspired by”, it goes completely off on a tangent in the end.

This is when the true nature of being a TV movie with a very soapy flair for the dramatic becomes obvious.

The Tell No Lies ending has so many ridiculous twists that you will see coming straight at you. Personally, I kept thinking “Surely, this movie isn’t going to do that?!”

When you base your story so obviously on the lives of real people, you could have the decency to follow through. Either that or change a lot more details about the actual crime.

You can watch Tell No Lies on TUBI

Dylan Vox is the director of this TUBi Original (a MarVista production) with a screenplay written by Sandra Bailey. The directing isn’t great for several reasons (mostly it’s too soapy at the wrong times) while the story is good… until it isn’t.

When you know the good part of the story is taken from a true story, it’s not as impressive. Changing the ending of the true story that inspired it, should’ve resulted in also making big changes to the actual true crime events.

This shouldn’t be legal as it is exploitive and downright defaming in the end!

And don’t even get me started on that final scene of Tell No Lies. Another moment you’ll be able to see coming a mile away while wishing they had stopped themselves upon the inception of that dumb idea!

Hey, I love campy and kitsch movies. However, you cannot make a movie based on true crimes and incorporate it into your daytime telenovela drama. Or rather, this TUBI proves that you can. But it’s also proof why you never should!

In line with this movie, I’ll end on a meme-inspired note: TUBI’s Tell No Lies took a perfectly good true crime and ruined it.

Tell No Lies is on TUBI from January 18, 2024. Yes, the very day after American Nightmare was released on Netflix. Watch the Netflix documentary instead!

Details

Director: Dylan Vox
Writer: Sandra Bailey
Stars: Keturah Chambers, Aaron Fontaine, Emily Eaton-Plowright, Wil Johnson, Nkechi Simms, James Palmer, Lachele Carl, Adam Bond