November 2, 2001 | After drifting through the Day-Glo fantasia of Waking Life, his dream-logic crazy-quilt of metaphysical riffing and digital-video doodling, Richard Linklater drops back to earth to get down and dirty with Tape, a claustrophobically intense drama with the tight, merciless focus of a sniper’s gunsight. It is, in its own way, on its own terms, just about perfect.

Tape is based on a stage play by Stephen Belber, who also wrote the screenplay adaptation, but Linklater obviously doesn’t care that we know that. Indeed, rather than waste his energies on seeking some way to make this three-character chamber drama seem somehow more “cinematic,” the celebrated indie filmmaker rubs our noses in the theatricality of the piece.

Everything happens within the confines of a single setting, a dingy motel room in Lansing, Mich., and the characters reveal themselves almost entirely through the parry and thrust of ferocious, full-contact dialogue.

Occasionally, two characters engage in an especially heated close encounter, and Linklater whips his camera back and forth, like an ESPN correspondent at a high-stakes tennis match, to keep pace with the rapid-fire escalation of accusation and denial, angry threat and false bravado. (Here and elsewhere in Tape, he uses a digital video camera to enhance the edgy immediacy of the drama.) More often, though, Linklater is content to maintain a calm, steady gaze on his characters, even as they tear away at their conflicting memories of a shared past, like animals who instinctively gnaw at wounds to kill their pain.

As Tape begins, the air is charged with the nervous energy of Vince (Ethan Hawke), a vaguely unsavory-looking fellow who practically vibrates as he smokes dope, swills beer and does a few quick push-ups while killing time his hotel room. He also does something that suggests he is capable of a certain low cunning, something that pays off much later while justifying the film’s cryptic title.

Vince eventually is joined by Johnny (Robert Sean Leonard), a long-lost buddy he hasn’t seen since they graduated from the same Lansing high school ten years earlier. There’s a hearty exchange of greetings, and some aggressively cheerful small talk. Very quickly, however, it’s clear there is a gaping chasm between the two guys, and Johnny is noticeably more comfortable, if not downright arrogant, on his side of the great divide.

You see, Johnny is a first-time filmmaker who’s in town to premiere his debut effort at a local festival. Now, of course, you might wonder just how good his movie could possibly be – after all, it is premiering at the Lansing Film Festival – but never mind. Johnny has the unmistakable aura of someone who’s absolutely certain that he has moved far away from a possibly checkered past – far enough, in fact, that he feels compelled to offer Vince a few encouraging words about goal-setting and self-improvement. Even if you listen very, very closely, you can scarcely discern the patronizing edge to his empathetic words. For Vince, however, the condescension resounds like a thunderclap.

Truth to tell, Vince is the sort of scruffy under-achiever who can make anyone else feel smugly superior. He claims to be a volunteer fireman back in Oakland – yeah, right – but concedes that he makes his living as a minor-league drug dealer. (And probably is his own best customer.) Recently abandoned by his long-time girlfriend, Vince refuses to make a big deal about the break-up, or admit any residual pain. (“I’ll probably find somebody else who appreciates my dark side.”) Besides, Vince is more interested in talking about another lost love, Amy, the girl who more or less dumped him to pursue Johnny near the end of their senior year.

Vince claims he remembers hearing that Johnny date-raped Amy at a party. Johnny insists he remembers nothing like that. Vince presses, relentlessly. Johnny backs down, gradually. Shortly after Johnny finally admits that, well, maybe something unpleasant really did happen, and he doesn’t feel all that good about it, Vince springs a few surprises. He announces that Amy still lives in Lansing, where she’s gainfully employed as – uh-oh! – an assistant district attorney. And, by the way, she’s going to be joining them in just a few minutes.

But wait, there’s more: Vince thinks Johnny should finally apologize to Amy. And he has a nasty trick up his sleeve to “persuade” his old buddy to do the right thing, regardless of whether Johnny – or Amy -- wants it done.

Amy doesn’t appear until two-thirds of the way into Tape. But when she finally does arrive, played with nimble intelligence and passion-fueled precision by Uma Thurman, she briskly asserts herself like a giant between pygmies. Right away, she recognizes that she’s been drafted to serve as a pawn by two bitter rivals locked in a grudge match. But Amy has her own agenda – and, more important, her own recollection of what happened, and why it happened, one fateful night ten years ago.

The conflicting remembrances and unresolved ambiguities evoke echoes of Rashomon. The single-minded jockeying for dominance, the eruptions of long-simmering resentments and the cold-blooded brutality of the prickly wordplay suggest the influence of Sam Shepard or David Mamet. And yet, for all that, Tape remains too mesmerizing – and, yes, too exhilarating – to ever seem stale or recycled.

Belber’s perfect-pitch dialogue ranges from enigmatic equivocation to blunt-instrument candor without ever sounding a false note. Linklater’s astute direction is perfectly attuned to the demands of his material, the complexity of the characters and the extremity of their emotions. And if there’s ever been another movie in which any of the three leads has given a better performance, I haven’t seen it. If you claim that you have -- well, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. Don’t take it personally, though. After spending 90 or so minutes with Tape, you can’t help questioning anyone else’s subjective judgment. Worse, you begin to doubt your own capacity for recalling anything like absolute truth.