MovieLine - Sometimes there are one or two or three things in a movie that seem wholly implausible: For example, characters who, in 2011, don’t use or even appear to own cell phones. Depending on the movie — and the necessity of cell phones to the story — you might find that one little glitch unforgivable or you might look the other way. But what if a movie has so many glitches, so many careless oversights, that looking the other way only brings on whiplash? The characters in Dito Montiel’s The Son of No One use cell phones, all right. But almost nothing else in the movie makes sense. It’s as if Montiel, who also wrote the script, came up with a cool idea and then had no idea how to spin it out into an even minimally plausible story.
Jeff Beck of We Got This Covered wrote, "The Son of No One is a strangely bland tale that attempts to be somewhat of a police procedural, but is never quite able to reach even those heights. The strange part of it is that the film has an interesting story at its heart, but the writer/director, Dito Montiel, seems to have no idea how to bring it together and make it interesting. It is this poorly-written screenplay that ends up being the film’s biggest weakness, for when your foundation is not steady, of course the film is going to suffer immensely."
Digital Hippos writes:
On paper this film should have been a winner. But sadly it's an example of when even a stellar cast cannot save a jumbled plot and unconvincing dialogue. I just don't think Channing Tatum is a leading man in this capacity. He'd be better off sticking with GI Joe sequels. I can see there was meant to be a message in this film - one about class discrimination perhaps, or one about the glorification of the police force post 9/11 and how it just gave them farther to fall. Interesting ideas for a film but Montiel and co. missed the mark here.
Sean of The Daily Rotation wrote, "I have been impressed with the past films of Dito Montiel, his debut feature A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints is still an under appreciated film, and I while I wasn’t blown away with Fighting, I still enjoyed it more than a few other similar films. Here, he reunites with Channing Tatum, who starred in his past two films (giving a career-best performance in Guide) and Ray Liotta comes back to work with Montiel again as well."
I've not seen it but would love to. It looks very interesting in the previews and I hadn't heard much about it for very long so I'll just have to look for it myself.
