Cruel Doubt

i've seen this movie just the other day on cable tv (in israel it has different connotations) and i was shocked to find out that

1) gwyneth paltrow (20 years old then) appeared there

2) "Dungeons and Dragons" was depicted as a monstrous twisted game, as opposed to the after school yawn social activity i use to attend. i'll get to that later.

the basic plot: the serene life of a wealthy suburban family interrupted when the father's body is discovered. the clues lead the local police to believe that it was a family member who's responsible, and the immediate suspect is his frigid doughter who seems greedy, vendictive and worst of all: blonde.

the plot thickens a bit later on and without elaborating too much I'll note that Dungeons and Dragons, a harmless game in which its participants adopt a bogous character and use its powers to overcome some dragons that are conviniently located inside you guessed it: Dungeons is depicted as a cult demonic ritual. I can compare this film to a film about a killer who goes out for its prey after watching the re-run of "who's the boss" the second thing that i noticed was that gwuneth is not much more that the movies she plays in, which means she can't save a bad film (i do believe that the film title related to her acting aspirations) let's sum up: the movie was standard when it was made back in 1992 and its certainly havan't gone better with age. if you get to see it, mock gwyneth for a while (it's fun, believe me) than move on Grade: 6, on my FilmOmeter.

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.

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.

Dungeons and Dragons is not a game to be taken lightly. Apparently some would feel that this movie is a joke. The mind is not a simple thing. Anyone who decries the possibility that this story is fact is fooling themselves.

Witness: fellow reviewers seem to believe that games that men concoct can never go too far. What they do or do not believe does not influence the truth.

Drugs certainly had a significant influence on the events. But the game certainly made it a little more feasible to those involved.

There are many more things out there than we will ever find out.

The acting was all very well done. McGrath and Danner helped to bring the emotions in this story to life. Asner and Ferrer also contributed interesting dimensions to the characters.

Like everyone has said, this is yet another attempt to blame something tragic on something other than the human being that committed it. After Colombine, the great evil was on black trench coats. This movie blames it all on D&D. PLEASE! A coat is a coat as much as a game is a game.

I have another issue here. In this movie it was very clearly implied that only quiet alienated creepy loser-type men played these games. Perhaps this is a (subtle) wink at the idea that only men could be influenced by a work of pure fiction, but I have to think it's further proof that the makers of this movie, and the author of the book it's based on, did not bother to research the game itself or the players of it. Did they talk to players of RPGs that have not killed anyone? I think there are MILLIONS of them out there, both men and women, yet they must focus on the one young man that may have had something to do with a murder. I know, I know, before you say it, I know that a story of a perfectly socialized person who also happens to play role playing games would not be a very interesting movie and could not have been nominated for an Oscar, but it would have been closer to the truth than this *thing*.

All I request is that people THINK before they imply something that alienates a large group of harmless, friendly, NON-angsty people. Is that too much to ask?