This review will be spoiler free, although part of me thinks that by spoiling it for people, it might help prevent some people from feeling the way I felt after getting out of “Catfish.” They got me. They got me pretty good. And I can’t hate them for that but in all honesty, nobody likes being duped. Maybe I should have taken the warnings in the trailer that this was a true story a little more seriously because I set my level of anticipation pretty high for this film after all the festival buzz and the awesome job of marketing the studio has done for the film. Bravo to those guys. Unfortunately, I got out of the film feeling like I paid to watch a glorified television special rather than a theatrical film release.
Honestly, there isn’t too much more I can say about the film other than I can’t help to feel like some of the events between the filmmakers and their friend in the middle seemed to come off staged… just slightly. Maybe it was me being a cynical moviegoer wanting to find a flaw in the film and make sure it was exaggerated but either way, the best parts of the narrative can all be found in the trailer, which leaves you paying for the ending… oh that ending. All I can say is if you do go into this with the bar set high, the most probable outcome will be you leaving the theater unsatisfied. Overall the story is interesting, a cautionary tale in these days of mass information flow via social media but it just may not turn out to be the film you were expecting to see. BTW, for some reason, ABC’s “20/20” did a report on the people involved in the film last week and pretty much spoiled everything so if you feel so inclined, (MAJOR SPOILERS IF YOU CLICK ON THIS LINK) you can check out the entire story here on the official site. You can thank me later for saving you the price of admission.
My review: Don't see Catfish. Just don't.