American Crime is a film that takes on two different genres in two different mediums, so it's not surprising that it ends up trying to be two different things at the same time. But outside of a little too much dramatic license and a very arbitrary ending, this movie manages to be fairly entertaining, even though it never quite settles on how it's trying to entertain you.
These filmmakers try to meld together the "real video" movie with a take on the true crime documentaries that infest television today. A young reporter named Jesse (Rachael Lee Cook), a young intern named Rob (Kip Pardue) and a producer from KCQN-TV named Jane (Anabella Sciorra) stumble upon a disturbing video tape while investigating the seemingly simple disappearance of a stripper. The tape shows someone stalking the stripper and includes images of another woman being stalked and killed. Then Jesse, Rob and Jane get another video of the stripper being stalked and killed, with images of Jesse being filmed without her knowledge on the tape as well. Then Jesse literally stumbles upon the dead body of the stripper. This stuff is clearing trying to invoke the atmosphere of films like The Blair Witch Project and Video X, with supposedly real video of actual events making up the story. But though Rob is constantly filming everything and we get flashes of pseudo-real video throughout the film, it is largely shot like a regular movie.
But American Crime also introduces us to the story of Jesse, Rob and Jane as though they are the subject of TV show called "American Crime" hosted by Albert Bodine (Cary Elwes), a character who starts out annoying the snot out of you but slowly grows on you like moss or a fungus. Here the filmmakers combine elements of all three distinct levels of the TV crime documentary. They have the snooty and somewhat prissy narrator who is common on cable TV crime documentaries, along with the talking head interviews that dominate network TV crime docs and the sensationalistic, tabloidy video of the syndicated real crime TV show.
Eventually, more tapes of women being stalked show up and Albert Bodine ceases to be a narrator of events that have already happened. He shows up in town to investigate what's happening with Rob and Jane, Jesse already having fled in fear. Albert, Rob and Jane, despite neither liking nor respecting respect each other, join together to find out who's killing these woman and what's behind these mysterious video tapes. And okay, I have to admit. The plot kind of falls apart after that. There's some Scooby-Doo-ish investigating and they end up in the country at big empty house and some things happen that don't make much sense in the context of the rest of the story or even in their own right.
Weirdly unsatisfying ending aside, this is a decent film. It's more than a bit uneven, sometimes being very much a horror/suspense story and other times forgetting it's trying to scare you and turning into an indy movie about drama in the workplace. But the scary scenes are relatively disturbing, the workplace drama is real enough to be intriguing and American Crimes shifts from one theme to the other smoothly enough, mixing them together like peanut butter and chocolate.
The best thing about this movie is probably the performances. Rachael Lee Cook is generic as Jesse, but the other three lead characters are all appealing while not being that likable. Rob is really annoying, but in an honest way. Kip Pardue captures an essence of youth with Rob being so caught up in his dreams of being a great documentarian that he has absolutely no sense of himself or how he behaves. Albert is really, really aggravating at first. I mean, you really hate when he shows up and starts yapping away. It seems like Elwes is putting on a very mannered and pretentious performance, but as the story goes along you see it's actually Albert who putting on that facade to cover up who he actually is. Jane isn't annoying, but she is very sympathetic. Annabella Sciorra shows us that Jane's bad behavior isn't due to a lack of self-reflection like Rob or self-deception like Albert. Jane's an unhappy, lonely woman who feels trapped in her life and is clumsily trying to find her way out.
This is also a visually creative movie. It has one of the best opening credit sequences I've ever seen and it effectively blends that "real video" look with traditional camera work. It's able to evoke that "this is what's happening" feel even when the images are like a normal film.
There are too many times when the movie cheats and things happen in a way they couldn't happen in reality, like many a crappy horror flick. And again, the filmmakers may have thought they came up with a very smart and provocative ending but they didn't. You can tell what they're trying to do, but they don't come close to doing it.
Even with its flaws, if you can go with the flow and follow along as American Crime swerves from one thing to another, I think you'll enjoy it.
These filmmakers try to meld together the "real video" movie with a take on the true crime documentaries that infest television today. A young reporter named Jesse (Rachael Lee Cook), a young intern named Rob (Kip Pardue) and a producer from KCQN-TV named Jane (Anabella Sciorra) stumble upon a disturbing video tape while investigating the seemingly simple disappearance of a stripper. The tape shows someone stalking the stripper and includes images of another woman being stalked and killed. Then Jesse, Rob and Jane get another video of the stripper being stalked and killed, with images of Jesse being filmed without her knowledge on the tape as well. Then Jesse literally stumbles upon the dead body of the stripper. This stuff is clearing trying to invoke the atmosphere of films like The Blair Witch Project and Video X, with supposedly real video of actual events making up the story. But though Rob is constantly filming everything and we get flashes of pseudo-real video throughout the film, it is largely shot like a regular movie.
But American Crime also introduces us to the story of Jesse, Rob and Jane as though they are the subject of TV show called "American Crime" hosted by Albert Bodine (Cary Elwes), a character who starts out annoying the snot out of you but slowly grows on you like moss or a fungus. Here the filmmakers combine elements of all three distinct levels of the TV crime documentary. They have the snooty and somewhat prissy narrator who is common on cable TV crime documentaries, along with the talking head interviews that dominate network TV crime docs and the sensationalistic, tabloidy video of the syndicated real crime TV show.
Eventually, more tapes of women being stalked show up and Albert Bodine ceases to be a narrator of events that have already happened. He shows up in town to investigate what's happening with Rob and Jane, Jesse already having fled in fear. Albert, Rob and Jane, despite neither liking nor respecting respect each other, join together to find out who's killing these woman and what's behind these mysterious video tapes. And okay, I have to admit. The plot kind of falls apart after that. There's some Scooby-Doo-ish investigating and they end up in the country at big empty house and some things happen that don't make much sense in the context of the rest of the story or even in their own right.
Weirdly unsatisfying ending aside, this is a decent film. It's more than a bit uneven, sometimes being very much a horror/suspense story and other times forgetting it's trying to scare you and turning into an indy movie about drama in the workplace. But the scary scenes are relatively disturbing, the workplace drama is real enough to be intriguing and American Crimes shifts from one theme to the other smoothly enough, mixing them together like peanut butter and chocolate.
The best thing about this movie is probably the performances. Rachael Lee Cook is generic as Jesse, but the other three lead characters are all appealing while not being that likable. Rob is really annoying, but in an honest way. Kip Pardue captures an essence of youth with Rob being so caught up in his dreams of being a great documentarian that he has absolutely no sense of himself or how he behaves. Albert is really, really aggravating at first. I mean, you really hate when he shows up and starts yapping away. It seems like Elwes is putting on a very mannered and pretentious performance, but as the story goes along you see it's actually Albert who putting on that facade to cover up who he actually is. Jane isn't annoying, but she is very sympathetic. Annabella Sciorra shows us that Jane's bad behavior isn't due to a lack of self-reflection like Rob or self-deception like Albert. Jane's an unhappy, lonely woman who feels trapped in her life and is clumsily trying to find her way out.
This is also a visually creative movie. It has one of the best opening credit sequences I've ever seen and it effectively blends that "real video" look with traditional camera work. It's able to evoke that "this is what's happening" feel even when the images are like a normal film.
There are too many times when the movie cheats and things happen in a way they couldn't happen in reality, like many a crappy horror flick. And again, the filmmakers may have thought they came up with a very smart and provocative ending but they didn't. You can tell what they're trying to do, but they don't come close to doing it.
Even with its flaws, if you can go with the flow and follow along as American Crime swerves from one thing to another, I think you'll enjoy it.