True Story
Director: Rupert Goold
Actors: Felicity Jones, James Franco
Release Date: Friday 17th July 2015
Genre(s): Drama
Running time: 99 minutes
Before you ask, yes it is actually based on a true story - an equally fascinating and disturbing one. There is a great film that could be spun from this horrible crime, this just isn't it.
Franco is in full on pompous mode as Christian Longo, a man accused of killing his wife and children. When he goes on the run after the murder and is subsequently caught, he claims he is recently disgraced New York Times journalist, Michael Finkel (Hill on just the right side of smug) - who lost his job after a story went array. Saying he will speak to Finkel and Finkel only, Longo attempts to manipulate the desperate journalist by generally seeming quite sound. Could such an amiable sort have horrifically butchered his entire family?
The test for films of this ilk based very much an actual occurrences is how deep you go afterwards looking into the real life characters. With something like Foxcatcher for instance, you could spend hours on YouTube looking at old interviews of the main players, feeding a curiosity born out of a gripping cinematic experience. The problem with True Story isn't the case that inspired it, or disturbing occurrences at its core, but rather how it's executed. This is a stoic, flat thriller, that wastes two solid actors looking to add a bit more dramatic density to their (currently more comedic) repertoire.
While visually it's slickly produced and the cast, on paper, fairly impressive the overall feel of True Story is that of a missed opportunity. Franco and Hill have proved before they can handle the dramatic; that's far from the problem here, which essentially is a film that fails spectacularly to engage you with its characters. Said characters interact, but it never particularly goes anywhere and there is zero tension given the subject matter. It's not a cat and mouse thriller, there is no battle of wills, it simply does not work.
Ultimately a disappointing and at times boring film, that wastes a remarkable story, and a game cast with dreary direction and a vacant script.
Absolutely a waste of time. True story!
