Stefan Schaefer's excellent first feature film, Confess, is a wonderfully written and acted, tense current-era thriller about political protest turned virulent and uncontrollable in our modern internet-ecology and -video information age. Embittered and talented computer hacker Terell (Eugene Byrd) re-emerges in New York after a long period underground, following a devastating start-up failure, for which he blames his ex-business partner. His personal revenge schemes via clandestine webcam metastasize into a powerful and dangerous terrorist-style movement that culminates in reckless kidnappings and murderous copycats. Schafer employs super smart use of the digital video medium and sometimes frenetic-seeming editing, as well as rewinds and flashbacks, to charge his premise with urgency and make it taut. With first-rate performances by entire cast, and a well-wrought script, the movie manages to, without bludgeoning, get its message nicely across.
