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Powerful

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Some of the best documentaries start out seeming to be about one subject and turn out to be about something totally different. That is definitely the central tactic of "Tickled," a movie that suggests a deep dive into the bizarre world of "competitive tickling" but surfaces as a film exposing one person's manipulative use of power and money.New Zealand journalist David Farrier and filmmaker Dylan Reeve knew they were on to something big when Farrier started to face threats and fierce legal resistance to his investigation of online tickling videos posted by a company named Jane O'Brien Media. They uncover a rather fascinating story, but whether the fish they caught is "feature documentary big" is the larger question that follows this movie around like a shadow.Bringing to light that some people have tickling fetishes certainly doesn't merit a 90-minute film, so the story Farrier and Reeve uncover has to be worthy of that time. To that end, you could make the case either way. Their investigation of the mysterious entity of Jane O'Brien Media is the bulk of the film's action, and they carefully unfurl the story, detail by important detail, to maximize tension. Some of these details seem obvious, making their deliberate withholding of information or of their key sources a little more gimmicky than journalistic.The story develops legs when we meet some of the young men who have been victimized by this company. Jane O'Brien Media deliberately seeks out young athletic men who will be incentivized by money; the problem is that when any of this "talent" tries to back out, the company uses the videos to ruin the young men's online reputations, i.e. making these videos high in search results about them and plastering their name all over the internet with the videos. What's unsaid is the way this exploits the homoerotic nature of the tickling videos as leverage for extortion."Tickled," however, focuses on finding out the truth about Jane O'Brien Media more so than the power of using the internet to manipulate people, or about how casting young men in a homosexual light can do incredible damage to their lives. These are issues that warrant exploration, but Farrier and Reeve mostly use them to add stakes and tone to their investigation.Investigative reporting is also not visually interesting, which "Tickled" struggles with. Too many shots show Farrier or other subjects/sources in the documentary sitting at a computer, or hands typing on a keyboard with voice-over. This is also the limitation of a story that lives almost exclusively in a digital realm. All of Farrier's brazen attempts to confront the people he needs answers from seem like courageous, bold actions taken in the name of truth, but the flipside of that coin is that his documentary would be nothing without them. There's no action in this film without him taking it.A major newspaper report or a long "60 Minutes" segment would seem most appropriate for "Tickled." As fascinating as the truth they discover and the portrait they paint of the individual behind all this are, the documentary feature format feels like an exhaustive means of telling the story. Farrier and Reeve also ignore the most interesting questions in favor of the mystery narrative, though some of Farrier's voice- over toward the end reveals their awareness of these bigger issues. There's one attempt to tie together the film's main topics of tickling and a controlling, abusive individual, but it requires overt explanation, and when that occurs, you know a documentary has become a little too splintered."Tickled" tells a story absolutely worth hearing and raises important questions, but because its tellers discovered themselves in the middle of that story, they weren't quite able to see the big picture and tell that story in a way most fitting for the big screen and that best tackled the issues at its core.~Steven CThanks for reading! Visit Movie Muse Reviews for more

Such an amazing film that I prefer to sketch out the broader points in note form: 1. The story is well known. Obscure N.Z. reporter with limited funds stumbles across an odd story on social media, tries to investigate it, and in no time at all 3 "thugs" cross the ocean from the U.S. to intimidate him. Digging deeper, he discovers what APPEARS TO BE a lone sociopath with millions of inherited family money who has, just like a Bond villain, established a global network of "tickling" studios, not necessarily for the money but seemingly to satisfy odd personal desires. A pattern emerges suggesting that this individual has a multi-decade "pattern" of the most astonishing personal attacks (including identity theft and other federal crimes) against anyone anywhere who gets in his way. Yet (and this is never properly explained in the film) somehow manages to bend even the Justice system to his will.2. So how does the film-maker respond? By crowdfunding a documentary and then tracking down the arch-villain. (The film is really a cross between a true documentary and an investigative journalism piece, which is quite rare.) 3. That's all the spoilers for the story. The raw power of the doc, however, lies in its ability to tease the viewer's imagination about what lies at the end of the breadcrumb trail. By the time you meet the nemesis (who in fact passed away shortly after the premier) the viewer has already formed a "mental picture" of what he will be like. That's the real power and magic of the story.4. Possibly one of the greatest docs of all time, even has its own sequel. Highly recommended.

A very intriguing documentary by this clever kiwi crew. What seems to be, and what SHOULD be, some fairly innocent and legit questions asked about professional tickling, turns out to be something quite extraordinary.A rabbit hole that goes very deep indeed, as leads get thin, and as law suits get filed, the crew know it is going to be a tough journey to get to the bottom of things and get the tough answers to the questions that were initially asked.It keeps the viewer engaged right to the very end.Very enjoyable and enlightening watch.Perhaps the next step for this crew is to see if they can get to the bottom of Huzaifa Huxaifa and why Lenny Pozner has a copyright on this person.

I arrived at the local art house cinema expecting to see Weiner only to find that it played at 4:30 and 9:30. Tickled, a film I hadn't heard of was just about to start at 7:00 so there I was. I have seen tickle videos on YouTube and elsewhere and always wondered about the economics behind these strange, professional looking videos. They weren't advertisements for subscription pay sites so what gives...Tickled sheds some light on the economics and motivation behind them. Without giving anything away, I'd suggest that it is as creepy and malevolent a story as Foxcatcher. The head games played by Mr. DuPont and 'Teri Tickle' are frighteningly similar even if the results were very different.Talking about the film with strangers as I left the theater: I thought my 'creepy' was better than any of the other adjectives mentioned. But when I talked about tickle videos being everywhere on the Internet, they might of thought that was creepy.Too often in documentaries, the person with the microphone can be overbearing to irritation. The low key approach in Tickled makes the journey more interesting. It only heightens what unfolds on the screen.