Murder in the Heartland

Why anybody would want to retell the story of Charles Starkweather so many years after the events that made him notorious is beyond my comprehension.

Perhaps it was just meant to be a character study: Tim Roth dominates the entire show as a passionate, capricious, and utterly fascinating Starkweather.

The film disturbs me because I doubt that the real Starkweather was so interesting. Contemporary accounts suggest he was a sociopath unable to calibrate his responses to all those negative situations of life: envy, frustration, depression. The director has done a great job; the question is, why.

While this film is not well known compared with Pulp Fiction, even Rob Roy, Roth's performance is spellbinding - at least as good as his role in Reservoir Dogs.

It deserves to be seen, as a landmark of late 20th century, one of the really great performances by an actor, rather than a star turn by an overhyped PR product.

It is a real shame this film is not available on home video, as I found it to be extremely well done and memorable. It is based on the notorious Charles Starkweather murder spree of the 1950s, and as a (more or less) true story, it automatically carries a certain level of fascination for afficionados of classic crime cases.

But this one has much more. It gives the viewer a sense of the complexities of the people involved. Starkweather's jailbait girlfriend, Caril Fugate (Fairuza Balk) comes across as oddly pathetic, the product a wretched home life. As such, she is credible and intriguing. She is docile and submissive but stubborn, as well. While not quite likeable, the viewer can feel some empathy toward her.

Starkweather, on the other hand, is a study in absolute amorality. His purposeless life unravels into madness on screen, with Fugate following, sometimes willingly sometimes out of fear or compulsion.

This is an intelligent film. Much is left to the imagination of the audience. It is a long movie, but absorbing. I recommend it highly.

I remember watching this when it originally aired and taping it because I'm a big Fairuza Balk fan. I just wish it was available on DVD. Everyone involved does a great job. Especially Tim Roth and Fairuza Balk. It made me want to read more about the real story behind the movie. Look for a young Renee Zellweger as Caril Fugate's older sister. I actually like this better than Badlands. Certainly worth watching! They definitely don't make mini-series like this any more. Very gritty!! I wish Fairuza Balk would do more films! There's another Starkweather movie coming out sometime soon, but I doubt it will be as well done. Someone please get this released on DVD!

This movie does a fair job of re-telling the Charles Starkweather story but falls short of the original picture starring Martin Sheen. The story itself is quite different and I have to believe the latter is a little bit more accurate. Excellent acting by Tim Roth and Fairuza Balk's courtroom scenes were quite good. Overall a fair movie.

As a child I remember reading about CarilAnn Fugate in one of those"Whatever Happened To.." books that my mother used to read!Of course she was still in the Nebraska Women's Prison,filing her appeals to her parole board.Some years later a discussion came up in my college psychology class about CarilAnn Fugate's recent release from prison and her apparent "antisocial personality disorder".Then in 1993 she popped-up out of nowhere,calling an angry press conference and venting her wrath over the airing of a TV movie about her "ordeal" as a "child" Naturally,being a movie and crime buff,I became fascinated with the Starkweather-Fugate case!Reading almost anything I could get my hands on about it and even watching "Badlands" and was surprised how close it came to the truth!However,I couldn't wait to finally see "Murder in the Heartland"! Hoping to maybe see the case played out and form some opinion about it for myself! Well...This movie definitely shows the known facts of the murder spree and sticks almost completely to the testimonies and the speculations!Perhaps so much that it leaves the viewer confused about young CarilAnn's actual level of involvement and the harshness of her consequences!Played to eerie perfection by Tim Roth and Fairuza Balk.The harrowing murder spree of Charles Starkweather and CarilAnn Fugate is one that will shock and bewilder!!