Cruel Doubt

Two hours worth of movie in a six-hour package. The screenwriter must have just typed the book verbatim into script. It takes a real effort to make such a riveting true story into such a bland and unprovocative flic. About three quarters of this belonged on the cutting room floor.

Gamers might want to watch it just for the fun of seeing how ineptly the script and prop folks handled Dungeons & Dragons. But other than that, there's not much point.

Another major source of annoyance -- or, in this case, gross-out -- was the way the male lead's nose ran whenever he was distraught. Who wants to watch snot run out this guy's nose?

If you want to learn about the case, read the book.

This is one mini series that follows the book very closely. The problem is that they are both full of stuff and nonsense. In his book "Cruel Doubt" Joe Mcginnis invents a connection between the D&D training scenario "Your First Game" and the murder of Leith Von Stein. The training game was, according to Mcginnis, used a blueprint for murder. He even uses a synopsis of the training game and compares it item by item to the crime. The problem is that it is all made up. The training game has only one point in common with his description of it, the name of a single character. The mini series takes this even further by fabricating photographic evidence. The mini series displays a photograph that is supposed to resemble the murderer in the act and represents it as being a page from the AD&D PLAYERS HANDBOOK. The picture does not exist in that book at all. Mcginnis says in a foreward that he took up the commission to write the book in part to help Bonnie Von Stein get some answers to the troubling events surrounding the attack on her and Leith that left her husband dead and her seriously wounded. Any careful study of the D&D materials and the claims made in this book and movie will demonstrate that the "connection" between D&D and this crime was limited to the simple fact that the conspirators met at college because they had a common interest in the AD&D game and nothing more. Simple greed was the motive for this horrendous crime. Whatever doubts Bonnie Von Stein has cruel or otherwise must remain. This movie could have told a better story if it had told the truth. As pure fiction "Cruel Doubt" has some merit. It can be moderately entertaining if taken with a generous helping of salt.

I should have just rented the long version of "Dune".

This movie is not that bad, not that good. It is the typical murder of the week, made for TV movie.

However, to all reviewers who are making comments about the Dungeons and Dragons aspect of the movie, I say "Read The Book".

The writers of the movie didn't pick this theme out of thin air. It was an important part of the actual crime. No one picked role playing games as a scapegoat.

Except maybe the actual perpetrator...

ddwriter from Texas said: This movie could have told a better story if it had told the truth....

And he's so right. I live in the town where the murders took place, not two miles from my house. Friends lived across the street from the VonStein's and my husband worked with Leith. The story was intriguing, sad and would have made a REALLY good movie if they'd just followed along with what actually happened.

Too bad it was embellished to the point of ridiculousness.