American Criminals

Amazing story, told from the perspective of one of the killers, based on his actual book written from prison, but not glamorously. Many historic and societal themes, starting with the Leopold and Loeb case as the central story. Others include infamous lawyer Clarence Darrow in his prime, LGBTQ+ themes, racial and economic disparity and tensions in Chicago at the time (and rest of the country), among others. First time the phrase "crime of the century " was used to describe this unspeakable killing of a young boy for the thrill of it. Production quality and acting is very good, easy to be pulled into the story, which is important with any film. Well done!

I should have some sympathy because this was clearly shot with no money and inexperienced actors, but it's not worth your time. The story is so slow and boring, the audio and editing are awful, the dialogue clunky and unbelievable. Also the costumes are so noticeably cheap and not period accurate. I sympathize, it's hard to shoot a historical movie on a low budget, but everything looked so cheap.

I think my biggest problem though was I'm not sure what message was the director trying to tell me, it felt aimless. I don't know much about the case it's based on, but what's the point of just showing these scenes of the killers talking and the lawyers talking, it just didn't felt like it built to anything.