At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This film is chock full o' cliché.You have the black teen robber, the young female whore, the businessman with a secret, the white boy wannabe thug. It never ends.Once Murray is chased up a tree by the robbers, it's scripted and shot pretty much like a stage play, with each side patiently waiting turn to say its oh-so-clever piece.There is no realism, and no tension. Not one of these characters feels real, and so we don't really care what happens to any of them in the end. Frankly, the Ravens should have been allowed to clean up. I mean, they walk right past with a severed head (what was that all about?) and you're NOT going to use them? But of course, in the end, you have the injured angel, the weeping whore, the coward runs away, etc. etc. Lessons learned. Mission accomplished. Yawn.And, of course, the credits say it was funded by pretty much every Canadian funding agency in existence. I can't even remember them all. Canada, Ontario, Television, Film, various channels (even beyond the usual), and so on. For all that, we deserve better.

I bought this movie because I wanted to watch more movies with David Hewlett. I have to say he is really good in this film. He makes his Murray a believable person with faults and good points. At first I couldn't see how he could win against the gang( he is in a tree for most of the film, trapped) but he is a good talker and that is a real advantage and at times he sticks his foot is his mouth big time. The rest of the actors are good and believable. Only thing is that all of the main people are not who you think they are. Funny how we all think we can tell who everybody is just by meeting them. This movie proves this to not be the case. The acting in this low budget film is great and the story line is not new just not over done.

I was flicking through channels on my TV dial at 1:30am couple of nights ago when I stumbled upon this thing already deep into opening credits. Though the little that I saw of the introductory sequence had me convinced it was at best a corny Canadian TV 'project' or an episode of some US syndicated TV series shot in Toronto I still decided to keep watching. And I'm glad I did. Well, kind of.The first part of the movie (chase scene, Murray getting on the tree, first physical confrontations before the impasse, etc.) is truly riveting. It exploits every big city dweller's palpable fear - that of being victimized in a random, senseless act of violence. Basically, this is the same shtick Steven Spielberg built his movie empire on: introduce a rudimentary phobia every normal person harbours to some degree, extend it to extreme levels, and then exploit it cinematically to no end - his movie "Duel", and even "Jaws" to a lesser extent, often came to mind during the initial stages of "Treed Murray". So, kudos to William Philips for, at least, keeping me on the edge of my seat. At this point I still cared about all characters and was really interested in seeing where the plot takes them.Unfortunately, the movie starts derailing sometime into the public park tree standoff. Despite coming off as this great menacing force in the beginning, watching these 5 hoodlums gets to be a major drag as time goes on. The screenplay tries its hardest to put a human face on them through minor, halfassed subplots, in hopes of providing the story with fresh legs, but all the details they (in)voluntarily surrender about personal hardships pale in comparison with the fact they're chomping at the bit to kill this random guy for absolutely no reason. We also learn Murray is no choir boy himself, but again, the fact that he cheats on his pregnant wife, occasionally uses hard drugs, and generally seems to be a manipulative, self involved jerk is completely irrelevant when viewed against the insanely murderous path these kids are on.The fact that screenplay calls on the kid-gangsters to take turns at being evil, insightful, conniving, benevolent, barbaric, caring, bloodthirsty, poignant, etc. doesn't help either. That it comes off hokey is no great surprise as such series of transformations would be next to impossible even for seasoned pros to pull off, let alone a bunch of teen actors.One also can't help but notice the unrealistic touches throughout the film. Murray, lame ad-exec who probably never lifted anything heavier than a pencil in his life, exhibits remarkable balance and stamina in fighting off a couple of charging gangbangers from a narrow tree branch. While incapacitating one of them, the other manages to get on the tree and Murray amazingly further succeeds in cuffing and tying him using a personal belt - quite a feat considering for example that it usually takes two trained cops to cuff an overzealous protester on terra firma.Still, I'd be more than willing to overlook all the artificial moments had the movie been more brave and direct. It started off with a lot of potential but quickly started losing its punch.

While this movie seems to revolve around characters and situations that are cliche and perhaps more based on American media archetypes than reality, Treed Murray nevertheless turns out to be a thought-provoking examination of issues relevant to today's times.Growing up watching the TV series Degrassi Junior High, we always used to joke that for a show noted for its "reality" they sure did a remarkable job of overlaying every possible teen calamity on a very small group of characters. This movie can be accused of a similar projection. However, perhaps in 90 minutes of film this sort of license may be not only allowable, but necessary.Overall, this is a very worthwhile, entertaining and interesting film, that manages to stand quite apart from those movies from which its characters have been lifted.