Reviews

DVR'd this one on a whim and was pleasantly surprised that it was intelligent, competent and watchable. But ultimately, this raised my expectations to a point where I was somewhat disappointed.

The performances here are strong, if a bit dour. William Forsythe always throws himself into characters and does so here. I thought the character could have been given more to do, but Forsythe provides a compelling performance. Yul Vazquez was also solid in the lead role; I would have liked to have seen these characters written with a bit more fun and humor - a joke here or there - but it's better than the "twilight" and similar dreck coming out. I thought the direction was competent, other than the inability to find a richer, more charismatic tone. The story works on the surface, but the plot meanders and we really don't get very far practically speaking. For example, an interesting vampire character is introduced, disappears, then reappears at the end, to no point.

Good cable flick to watch, particularly for folks who are not "purests".

Because the Hillside Strangler case is so interesting and compelling from beginning to end (the longest trial is the history of California & twice as long as OJ), film-makers have made several attempts at telling the story. Most have failed badly - this little made for TV version, however, is excellent, well-acted and hits all the right & important notes.

The casting and performances are first rate. The late Richard "Colonel Troutman" Crenna conveys the humanity of the lead cop on the case well (this was a difficult case over numerous months - several cop marriages failed over it). Dennis farina is coolly menacing as Buono. Billy Zane gives what may be his greatest performances in the most challenging role - that of Bianchi. He captures the tone perfectly as both charming, handsome and brutally violent. The movie goes to great lengths to humanize the victims and avoids being exploitive, though it is scary and dramatic.

One of the problems with other movies on this subject is they do not capture the complexity of the story, what makes the killers "tick", the sociological context and the human factor. They want to make this a serial killer / slasher concept, but it isn't. The story and characters are complex. The scariest thing may be that these guys came within an eyelash of getting away with it (the LA DA refused to prosecute; the County picked up the case & did). Also one of the first cases to use fibers to convict the killer. Interesting stuff. Check it out.

As a Hillside Strangler buff I decided to buy this DVD ($5 at Blockbuster). I was blown away by the inaccuracies of the story, to the point of fraudulence. This is not really the Hillside case at all. The time-line is completely off (events happen waaay out of sequence to real life), and the Brittany Daniel (main) character is at best an amalgamation of a number of characters, and at worst a complete fabrication (not a good sign in a fact based movie when the lead character never existed!). And oddly, the story is told from her point of view, with an odd story-line about coke deals and sex parties. If I had a nickel for every movie with a lesbian criminal psychiatrist who looks like a model, does coke, throws sex parties at her home in the Hollywood Hills and does interrogations with her top open...

But worst of all, the movie fails to capture the essence of the story (one of the most bizarre and interesting cases ever, from beginning to end), what made the killers "tick" and worst of all disregards the victims by basically phasing them out of the narrative. On top of that, the film-making is amateurish (you'll need to down a bottle of Dramamine due to the camera that NEVER STOPS SWIRLING AROUND) and unsteady.

On the plus side, the performances by Clifton Collins, Jr. and Brittany Daniel are good. Though she isn't given much material to work with (many of her scenes involve her "thinking" aka staring off into space), she is sometimes engaging and always nice to look at. If you're really interested in Hillside, the best movie on it is The Case of the Hillside Stranglers, the 1989 made for TV flick with Richard Crenna, Dennis Farina & Billy Zane -Zane's performance in particular nails the Bianchi character much better than Rampage, and Crenna and Farina are excellent as well. The story also has more to do with the victims, and also with the toll the case took on the cops involved. Of course, that movie doesn't have long nude scenes w/ Brittany Daniel, so you'll have to choose.

Fight Club is an angry, hilarious, sadistic, satirical, mean spirited and extremely ambitious film. In a sentence or 2, Norton's character struggles with self-worth, meaning and general self-loathing in a culture that has castrated what it is to be a "man". That is, until a chance meeting with Pitt's character changes his life, signaling the creation of the violent, male "becoming" exercise of Fight Club (a brutal, secret, hand-to-hand combat ritual). This leads to a larger movement of cultural anarchy and revolution. Its a wonder the film got made because it is dark, misogynist, violent and left-leaning (all good in my book). FC is one of those films that can be life changing and get under your skin (particularly for men), with its messages of male self-awareness and identity, rage at the state of the world and vitriolic bashing of the consumerism, materialism, conformity and vanity that some of us see and detest. It is also one of those movies that is ripe for misunderstanding, as some people do not "get it" (the fighting, for example, is more a metaphoric exercise, not a call for frat guys to go punch each other silly). Pitt is a revelation, Norton is just as magnetic, and Helena Bonham Carter steals several scenes playing against type. I think the first 3/4 of the movie is brilliant. It falls apart at the end for me on one thing (spoiler warning) - Pitt HAS TO BE A REAL PERSON, not a figment of Norton's imagination - even though they are clearly alter-egos in the metaphoric sense. Though the struggle is clearly Norton's own internal one, it has to be externalized, which it was for the 1st 3/4 (this has been handled much better in much lesser movies- "Bad Influence" with James Spader comes to mind). When I learned the Pitt character is "not real", it ruined it for me. Kind of like the "it was all a dream" ending you see in really bad movies. The attempt to go back at the end & stick Norton in all the scenes that Pitt was in is clunky & doesn't work. Just an opinion - still a fantastic film and an icon-making performance by Pitt.