The Deliberate Stranger

A note to any wannabe actors: study Mark Harmon's performance heavily here. You will learn all the tricks to being sauve, slick, sinister and charming. Unfortunately, the part had to be inspired by real events, of 70's wacko Ted Bundy. Masquerading as a law student with a talent of attracting girls seemingly in every port, a different man takes over at night as Harmon stalks and kills young women. This element of the film got a bit redundant after awhile, and really isn't the key. Neither is the endless policework that can be seen weekly on every prime-time cop show. It's Harmon's way of double-talking his girlfriends, and especially, the police. Watching Harmon's scenes on the witness stand or in the questioning room of the police station are your chance to watch a total pro at work. And the actors portraying the cops aren't slouches either. Tons of veterans like M. Emmett Walsh, Frederic Forest and John Ashton are featured. And a very effective performance from unknown journeyman actor George Grizzard, as Bundy's only friend through it all. He comes off very likable as the guy who just can't bring himself to condemn this young buck he admires. The two or three actresses featured here and there do ok as well. The only mis-step for the film is the majorly overdone, if still somewhat creepy music score. It gets a bit B-movie at times, but it adds to the eerieness of the film's tone. Though at 3 hours (4 if you're watching with commercials) it grips you from start to finish. But the real draw, most notably for aspiring actors, is to forget classes and watch Mark Harmon put on a clinic for performing.

Considerably above average for a TV made-for. There may be factual changes but to someone not familiar with the details of Bundy's career, they can't be too damaging. And the film sort of stands by itself as a craftsmanlike piece of work on the part of just about everyone concerned with it. Marvin Chomsky directed with economy and efficiency, except perhaps for a bit too much complaining and self-pity on the part of police officers.

He was faced with a problem, namely that viewers already knew how the story "came out," and has at least made an attempt at heightening the suspense by showing only Bundy's shoes plodding along the dark streets before each murder, until his last awful blood feast, when we see his face twisted with passion. Mark Harmon, who elsewhere gives performances that an especially handsome mannequin could turn in, is surprisingly good. He has that phony self-revealing charm, that fleeting smile, that serves as a mask of sanity. He also gives a bang-on definition of "sociopath" to Dick Larson on the other side of the prison bars.

There is some disagreement among knowledgeable visitors to the courtroom when in the course of defending himself Bundy begins to choke up with emotion. "What a performance," mutters one of the cops. "Or maybe," says Larson, "he really is feeling the suffering himself." Well, Dick -- sorry, but the cop was right. It isn't that sociopaths (or anti-social personality disorder, unsocialized type, as they're now called) don't feel their own suffering; it's just that it's fleeting. (There is a pattern that appears in responses to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory that is known to clinicians as "the caught psychopath" pattern.)

There's a lot of depression, yes, but it disappears quickly because sociopaths are so adaptable, so good at exploiting their environments. Bundy is shown constantly cadging butts from friendly visitors. A good sociopath would care much more about the cigarettes than the affection they're getting.

Serial killers (the term didn't really exist until about the time Bundy appeared on the scene) are intrinsically fascinating because there is no part of most of us that can begin to understand their motives. Most homicides take place between friends and relatives. We murder them because they are in a position to hurt us. We value their opinions of us. But the ghastly murder of one stranger after another leaves us stunned. We can't identify ourselves with the killer and we are in awe of someone who has so abused the ritual codes of the communities we draw our shared identities from. It's like mother-son incest.

The pop stuff about Bundy going to Florida because he wanted to be caught and punished is a lot of bunkum. And I always wonder, when I read books or see movies about guys like this, how they get around the way they do? Let's see. Bundy squeezes out of his cell somewhere in the mountains of Colorado. There is a glimpse of him striding through O'Hare in Chicago. Then he turns up in Talahassee, Florida. He escaped with nothing more than the clothes on his back. How did he get from Colorado to Florida in the total absence of material resources? How could he buy a new wardrobe? How could he plunk down a month's rent on a room, plus one month's deposit?

A footnote: When Lisa Birnbach was doing interviews for her College Book in the early 1980s, virtually none of the students at FSU, including members of the sorority that the victims had belonged to, knew who Ted Bundy was. Sic transit gloria Bundi.

If you want to see the most detailed film on Bundy, especially as an adult during his crime spree, then this just over 3 hour, two part TV movie is still without a doubt the best bet. It doesn't detail or show much of his crimes, the scene usually cuts just before the crime, but that's how 80's TV movies usually dealt with the extreme. The film though does show many of Bundy's personal relationships and real nuances more than any other recreation I've seen. Harmon's Golden Globe nominated performance is perhaps the closest anyone has ever come to matching the real Bundy personaS, as multiple as they were. The film details quite well the cunning subtle manipulative aspects of Ted. Bringing girls he had safe relationships with to parties with connected community people, making a friendly, smiley appearance and then quickly taking off. Like a politician, just gradually working everybody little by little, until hopefully one day he could use them for his gain. He was a Psych major, a Law student and a person who had considered getting into politics. Bundy is the type of serial killer that interests me because he was smart. Most serial killers in history, the ones that have been caught at least, were not very intelligent people. There are of course quite a few exceptions, but it is true that predominantly most come from abusive backgrounds, with little money, and have less than average intelligence. It's just a fact. Bundy as well as most of the more interesting serial killers in history, definitely defy those often common factors, especially when it comes to intelligence. This film is pretty standard in it's delivery, but quite detailed and well acted, so very worth the watch. This account was actually praised for how close to fact it was when it came out. The amount of things they have right is pretty impressive, especially when you consider that when this film came out, Bundy still had not even confessed to even one of the murders on record. However the evidence was staggering. As it is well said in this film, the guy could in his mind rationalize anything. The only big knock I have against the film really is the terrible 80's musical score. Thankfully they didn't flood the film with too, too much of it. Just enough to make you very sure you hate it. 7.5/10.

Forget the fact that this was a TV movie. The only thing which possibly could have prevented this movie from being released in theaters was its time (of nearly three and a half hours). Otherwise, it's probably the best movie about Ted Bundy ever released.

Mark Harmon is surprisingly good in this movie. The reason I say surprising is because he has had comedy roles before this one (e.g. "St. Elsewhere"), so you wouldn't expect him to play a complex serial killer as well as he actually does. What Harmon manages to do is portray Bundy as a complex character, successfully balancing Bundy's outer charm and inner sociopathic ways. I have seen other movies about Bundy, and those actors portray one side of him with inaccurate results. It really takes the person who plays Bundy to carry the entire movie, and when such a complicated serial killer is played the wrong way, the entire movie comes off as an exploitation or a cheap horror film.

This movie also gives detail into the police who are trying to track him down, and that information is equally as fascinating as Bundy's character. The addition of the late Dick Larson (portrayed by George Grizzard), the reporter who wrote the book to which the movie was based, gave a really good outsider's perspective of the Ted Bundy case. It's almost as if Larson was added in to represent the idea of the viewers. After all, it is Larson who wonders towards the end of the movie how a well-educated, ambitious, promising young man (who majored in psychology, no less) could be so ruthless when he could have been much better in life. The movie doesn't admittedly delve into Bundy's thought process, but it doesn't really have to. Plus, many authors have attempted to analyze Bundy, and a movie which does the same could take five hours to even cover the basics.

It's really all the perspectives of Bundy that make this movie great. From Bundy's own perspective to that of the police to Larson, and finally to the victim's families. One especially difficult part of the movie was when one of the victim's fathers goes into the coroner's office to identify the remains of his daughter. His wife stays outside on his insistence, and the shouting that comes from him says it all. I don't know if R-rated freedom to show the victim's true remains would do that scene any more justice. It's one of the movie's many terrifying moments.

I'm also surprised that this two-part series was shown late at night, because I was unable to get to sleep after seeing the Chi Omega scene. The editing in that scene is terrific, and it stays in your mind long after the movie is over. I count myself fortunate to have seen this movie during the daytime when I didn't have to go to bed afterwords.

So simply put, this movie is still a must see, and that's saying a lot for a TV movie that was made in 1986. As of the date I am writing this review, the movie has yet to be released on DVD, and can only be seen either on Lifetime or on its now out-of-print videocassette. It's a great movie about a still-mysterious serial killer that tells us enough to keep us glued to the screen. It's a must see, but it's far more difficult going to sleep after seeing it.

A two-part, made-for-TV movie on the life of serial killer Ted Bundy, this was an intriguing, well-done film. Mark Harmon is excellent as Bundy. He has similar looks and is an underrated actor. I doubt if they could find a better actor to play this particular role.

In this day-and-age, it's nice to see a movie in which the cops are portrayed as tough but fair and likable. In this case, the two main ones are played by Frederick Forest (Apocalypse Now )and John Ashton (Midnight Run). Since it was made for television in the 1980s, the movie has little profanity and blood. Most of the time, the violence is implied. It's still chilling in parts. We don't always need CSI-type blood and guts to get the point.

What they missed, however, was WHY Bundy did the things he did. They had time to develop that angle, but never touched it. Supposedly, violent pornography had something to do with his behavior, but nothing was explored in this film. Overall, it was still an interesting story and amazing how many people he fooled and how he could escape twice after being arrested. Good story.