Ready? okay, highlight this [ This is a whodunit where YOU NEVER FIND OUT WHO DID IT!!!].
Yeah, Really!
*****More spoilers to follow*****
I commented way back in Week 5 that blood is, as we are so often told, thicker than water, and as such one cannot get away with using red water as blood; no such problems here - the opening kill seems to work on the idea that blood is thicker than custard - a pipe to the head seems to result in red emulation paint pouring from under the victim's hairline!
Seven whole minutes into the movie, a text crawls informs us that the movie we are "about to see"(!) is based on a true story - then has the lamest disclaimer you've ever seen (To paraphrase "except in so far as it isn't") - see the end of the review for this text's reprise.
The biggest problem here, besides it's utter dullnes and lack of resolution, is the way the film jumps all over the place - It starts with a murder, then jumps to the trial of the (supposed) killer - the victims husband, then it's flashbacks based on testimony (including the cardinal sin of flashbacks - flashbacks to things that the person speaking wasn't present for) so next we're in wartime Hungary, then a party where the guy's wife is still alive, then they meet, then the marriage is on the rocks - all without warning.
Come to think of it, even the trail itself is jumbled - the first trail scene has the judge asking if the prisoner has anything to say before sentence is passed, but later in the film we here from witnesses - an the jury presenting their decision near the end of the film is played as a point of drama, despite the fact that we already know he will be sentenced. What. A. Mess.
The only point in the movie during which I was remotely entertained is presented here, to save you the effort of watching the rest of the "movie" (bear in mind that these guys are best friends):
Well... This is awkward...
There's a go-nowhere subplot about a murderer who escapes a home for the criminally insane - we see him kill (THEN rape - eew) a girl we have never seen before, and then he's actually called to our guy's trail based on the fact that the location of the murder - in the victims own home - was a bit close to the site of his murders.
The police investigation is carried out so badly that ANY lawyer ,including Lionel Hutz or Ted Buckland, could have got it thrown out of court! The police promise key suspects immunity to wear a wire, strip the body naked at the scene before (glovelessly) cramming them into an evidence bag, and pull out the victims fingernails (!) and bag them without a pathologist present. Oh, and the entire justice system fails to notice that the husband is out shopping with his daughter and the victims cousin at the time of the murder!
I suspect that this movie was originally a lot more chronological, but they realized it was dull and (mistakenly) thought that shuffling it would make it more interesting.
Fun Fact: The movie Men In Black originally had an extra sub plot, which didn't test well and was removed in post production, obviously one cannot simply cut a subplot and have everything else just work out, so re-shoots are usually needed - in the case of MiB this was avoided by re-dubbing a talking dog, and changing some subtitles and the display of a large viewscreen. Why do I mention this here? I suspect that a similar clever bit of editing may have happened in this movie.
See if you can spot the oh-so-smooth dialogue removal in the following scene:
Seamless, ain't it?
All in all the whole thing is a shambles which, despite having far too many sub-plots and suspects, manages to be confusig, dull and frustrating in roughly equal measures.
Oh, and in-case we missed the bizarre information / disclaimer crawl at the (kind of) begging of the film, the text is repeated again after the credits:
It's fiction... apart from the bits which are true... which may also be fiction...
Body Count: 5 (2 'real' plus 3 in dream sequences)
Boob Count: 2 pairs
Animal Body Count: Countless chickens in slaughterhouse footage.
Most memorable death: Paint-headed pinata woman.
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