Starkweather

I have studied Charles Raymond Starkweather for the past six months. I was excited when I saw that it would be on Showtime. Not being able to order Showtime, I picked up a copy at Blockbuster. The review is as follows: In the winter of 1958-1959, Charles Starkweather murdered 11 people with his girlfriend Caril-Ann Fugate as his accomplice. Their symphony of murder is told through this movie inaccurately. The hour-and-a-half runtime it has is too short to tell a story of this magnitude. They could've done so much more with the material they had. They could've explored Charlie's personality. What they produced is a film lacking depth and any reason. The psychological effects that Starkweather's crimes had on the public was not displayed at all. And Starkweather's murders are not portrayed accurately.

This movie could've been great given a longer running time and an accurate portrayal. But what the viewing public is left with is a Lifetime Movie on a different channel.

4/10

Lets look at the plot outline to start with, which refers to 16 year old Starkweather and his 14 year old girlfriend. Whilst I thought Brent Taylor and Shannon Lucio played their roles adequately, they do not pass as these age groups. If you research the facts of the film you find that Starkweather was actually 19 and Caril had just turned 13 therefore, I don't understand why they cast two obviously older actors. There should have been more of a 'Lolita' scenario. The poster refers to Natural Born Killers, etc and suggests this is the story that inspired these films. This film inspires no one. It dwells on the 11 killings but at the same time does nothing to broaden our understanding of the characters. The events leading up to the first murder are brushed over. 'Lets just give an idea of who they are and move on to the gore!' But the violence is just lame and it becomes monotonous seeing Starkweather moving on to the next kill. The character who stood out was the Sheriff but for all the wrong reasons. If he smokes in real life then he has a funny way of holding a cigar. His dialogue was laughable and every time he came on screen I cringed. Don't go out of your way to watch this film, you'll regret it.

The story about two lovers travelling around and killing people has been done already, and a lot better I might add. I know this is a recollection of a true story, but that shouldn't be an excuse, all these bases have already been covered. It has also been brought up before, but this movie has quite a lot of bothersome mistakes. Especially the fact that it's summer in January is really an eyesore, sometimes it seems like they just really didn't care. However, I can't say this movie is all bad. It has a very good pace to it, which makes it feel short and to the point. The movie also captures the cruelty of its main characters pretty well, especially the scene with the parents is pretty effective. And then the little girl walks into the room. The actors are also pretty good, except for a hilariously cheesy performance by the guy who plays the devil who has to show way too much of his face. Of course the girl is also way too pretty, but it's Hollywood, what did you expect? This movie is not bad, but gives me a lot of déja-vus.

Setting aside all aspects of accuracy of story or landscape or props or whatever, and any problems with boom mics this is plain and simply just very bad. The script is the worst offender, truly awful, after Charlie's first murder when he tells Caril-Ann that he did it for her I couldn't believe the response. I actually mouthed to myself verbatim what a corny line would have been in that situation but she actually said it. For a film dealing with a serious subject with a purported serious tone was the sheriff's assistant comic relief or just atrociously written. The car-chase scene near the end was pure farce.

This film is lazy on many fronts but none worse than the character of the mentor. This is the sole justification for why Charlie Starkweather would embark on a killing spree, although at least this is more justification then for why Caril-Ann would go along with it. This seems to me the biggest of corners cut to tell a story, surely there must have been more to Starkweather's background than this, and how accurate is this sub-conscious cloaked man as a part of Charlie's personality anyway? I think better analysers than me will be able to give a whole load more reasons not to see it, all I can do is tell you it's bad, very bad, and despite the occasional flirtation with so bad it's good, it doesn't even merit that.

Well, I can't work out all the people mooning over this movie. I was told the wrong version contains some boom mikes, etc. Well I've got the right version and I still see boom mikes. Never mind that, this is Nebraska, right? Then why are the characters talking with redneck hillbilly accents? Why does the scenery look like Arizona, not Nebraska? Are we presumed too stupid to notice? And the best one of all, the time-frame is 1957-58, right? Well then why are all the cars from the 1940s? OK, a couple are from 1950-51, but not a one newer than that. Again, I have to suppose we are credited with being unable to pick the difference. Old cars are old cars, what's the big deal? And just to ice the cake, several characters are wearing 2004-style eyeglasses. I'm sorry, but these stick out like dogs' balls. Any one of these items fatally damages the film's credibility. Put them all together and it becomes a joke.

Sorry, guys, sort out your backdrops, authenticate your props, localize the dialog and most importantly, get the cars right. I'll give it a 3 anyway, because the actors did a pretty good job. They even managed to keep straight faces.