Fashion Victim

The 1997 assassination of gay fashion icon Gianni Versace outside his luxury mansion in Miami has never been fully understood or explained. But this much underrated TV movie goes a long way towards redressing our confusions.

27 year old Andrew Cunanan was a rather tragic enigma. Perhaps he represented the frustrations faced by all of us as we gradually lose our youthful beauty and face the reality of needing to attract others with something more than sexual charm. Perhaps he was motivated by consuming jealousy, the fear of inadequacy or perpetual failure or even the manic terror of HIV infection. Or maybe he was simply suffering from a psychotic illness. We shall never really know but we are certainly given a fair insight by this really watchable version of events.

The acting may be a little amateurish in parts and the script in one or two scenes appears naive. But do not let this detract from the quality of this production. Jonathon Trent is perfectly cast as Cunanan and gives a quite believable performance. The pace is sharp and attention is maintained throughout. But most of all the story is accurate in many details and we are left with a vision into these events that is as close to reality as any film could achieve.

My god this is awful in every single way. This film is an insult to the memory of Cunanan's victims. The lead's acting is horrendous. It skips over important details of the previous murders, painting no picture of who these unfortunate souls were or the twisted reasons they became victims of this psychopath. After a short 15 minutes into this film, I was ready to turn it off. Regretfully, I stuck around until the end.

As someone who lived and worked as a bartender at an after-hours club (Hombre) on South Beach the summer that this happened, I could write a more accurate rendition of the story. I spoke with the FBI who went to all the bars asking if anyone had seen or knew of Cunanan's whereabouts. I was interviewed by a particularly annoying NY Post reporter. Thankfully I never had the misfortune of meeting Cunanan, but I knew a few people who had met him briefly, which I found out later on. There was a dark cloud hovering over the beach for the week he roamed free after the senseless murder of Gianni Versace. We were all afraid and our guard was up.

Cunanan's victims deserved better than this garbage. Everyone involved in making this project should be ashamed of themselves. Do yourself a favor - skip this tragic mess and watch the Ryan Murphy mini-series instead. Flaws and all it is a much more accurate and thoughtful portrayal of what really happened.