Paramount | 2009 | 86 mins. | Not Rated
First aired on MSNBC in December of 2009, talhotblond sounds like something tailor made for Dateline or 20/20; the film is trying to reteach us something many of us have been aware of for the last fifteen years or so: the internet is no place to talk to strangers because anybody you talk to could be a “world class liar” out to take advantage of you. The debut documentary from director Barbara Schroeder tells the story of a classic love triangle, but delivers a twist in the closing minutes that will leave you utterly stunned. It’s Schroeder’s ability to keep her ‘trump card’ close to the vest until the possible moment that makes this documentary such an effective piece of work.
Having the story narrated by the voice of the murder victim, Brian Barrett, 22, (the fact that he’s dead is stated at the outset) gets your attention right away. He introduces us to a co-worker, middle-aged killer Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two in upstate New York who obsessively frequented internet chat rooms under the handle “marinesniper.” They both happen to fall in love with “talhotblond,” an 18-year-old named Jessi from West Virginia. Jessi, starving for attention, is more than happen to play the two men off each other for her own amusement. Thomas, not wanting to be the boring middle-age father he is, presents himself as an 18-year-old marine sniper who is about to ship off to Iraq. Schroeder shows the chat room text (made public during Montgomery’s trial) on the screen, along with sleazy music to ramp up the ick factor, and hammer home all the lies.
With a story like this, it would be natural to expect the murder to be the climax of the story. Instead it only sets up something more shocking and depraved to outsiders. Since the story has all the earmarks of a tabloid story, it might be easy for many of us to shake our heads and ignore it. Unfortunately, this story didn’t happen in some dark subculture of the country; these were regular people with families, jobs and responsibilities—not unlike millions of others around the world who use the internet every day.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be,” and while he penned those words in 1961 they seem particularly apt at a time when we can pretend to be whoever we want to be on the internet. talhotblond makes you think: most of us wouldn’t engage in discussions of a personal nature with a stranger on the street; why do we feel the freedom to do so on the computer?
Paramount Digital Entertainment has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to talhotblond. The film is available through download-to-own digital distributors the likes of iTunes and Amazon.
Note: Due to mature subject mature, parental discretion is advised.
