Jessica Biel plays a backwoods mom searching for her kidnapped son in the serviceable but ultimately silly thriller “The Tall Man.”
A decaying former mining town is plagued by an outbreak of child snatchings. Local folklore blames the kidnappings on a shadowy cloaked figure — the Tall Man — some claim to have seen in the vicinity. When much-respected nurse Julia (Biel) loses her child, though, she puts up a more spirited fight than most. And she is drawn into an ever more tangled web, much of it seen through the eyes of a fragile girl (Jodelle Ferland) who can’t (or won’t) speak.
“The Tall Man” spits out enough scares and twists to maintain our interest, but the film’s psycho-sociological layer is almost as cheesy and unconvincing as its low-rent action scenes.