Fúria Assassina

Bad acting. Bad script. Wildly inaccurate. I am slightly surprised that Charlie Starkweather hasn't risen from the grave and hunted down the makers of this so-called film. This is the kind of worthless movie you would expect to see on late night TV, probably on one of the cable channels that specializes in bad movies. Unfortunately it's not bad in a good, goofy, campy kind of way - it's just generically bad.

Let's start with the script, since that is the greatest offense. The dialogue contains phrases that no one in 1950's Nebraska, much less Charlie Starkweather and friends, would ever say. I doubt anyone today would spout out such ridiculous lines. It's the kind of stuff you might find in a Harlequin Romance from the 1970's. Where does Hollywood find such talentless writers who come up with nothing but clichéd hacks? If that weren't bad enough, the script is full of inconsistencies: one minute a character will say something, the next minute he will contradict what he said before, as if he didn't remember what he just said. It's just plain dumb writing.

The acting is as bad as you would expect. I've seen better acting in worse films, but bad acting is bad acting - no further explanation necessary.

It's so inaccurate you wonder if the writer and director read even the sketchiest accounts of the events covered. They assign Charlie's motives in killing to a shadowy character (Lance Henricksen) who talks him into murdering people for the dumbest reasons you've ever heard. No attempt is made at historical accuracy - if you think you're going to learn something about the Starkweather-Fugate case from this film, then think again. All it will do is lead you astray. I wonder that Caril Fugate hasn't sued the makers of the film for portraying her in this manner.

So there you have it: lame all around, from the script to the final credits. Thankfully there has been a decent movie made about these events, check out "Badlands" with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. It's over a decade older, but much better done, if still not very accurate.

In conclusion, if Charlie were to rise up and kill the director, script writer, and everyone involved in this movie - I doubt a jury would convict him.

The story about two lovers travelling around and killing people has been done already, and a lot better I might add. I know this is a recollection of a true story, but that shouldn't be an excuse, all these bases have already been covered. It has also been brought up before, but this movie has quite a lot of bothersome mistakes. Especially the fact that it's summer in January is really an eyesore, sometimes it seems like they just really didn't care. However, I can't say this movie is all bad. It has a very good pace to it, which makes it feel short and to the point. The movie also captures the cruelty of its main characters pretty well, especially the scene with the parents is pretty effective. And then the little girl walks into the room. The actors are also pretty good, except for a hilariously cheesy performance by the guy who plays the devil who has to show way too much of his face. Of course the girl is also way too pretty, but it's Hollywood, what did you expect? This movie is not bad, but gives me a lot of déja-vus.

I have studied Charles Raymond Starkweather for the past six months. I was excited when I saw that it would be on Showtime. Not being able to order Showtime, I picked up a copy at Blockbuster. The review is as follows: In the winter of 1958-1959, Charles Starkweather murdered 11 people with his girlfriend Caril-Ann Fugate as his accomplice. Their symphony of murder is told through this movie inaccurately. The hour-and-a-half runtime it has is too short to tell a story of this magnitude. They could've done so much more with the material they had. They could've explored Charlie's personality. What they produced is a film lacking depth and any reason. The psychological effects that Starkweather's crimes had on the public was not displayed at all. And Starkweather's murders are not portrayed accurately.

This movie could've been great given a longer running time and an accurate portrayal. But what the viewing public is left with is a Lifetime Movie on a different channel.

4/10

Setting aside all aspects of accuracy of story or landscape or props or whatever, and any problems with boom mics this is plain and simply just very bad. The script is the worst offender, truly awful, after Charlie's first murder when he tells Caril-Ann that he did it for her I couldn't believe the response. I actually mouthed to myself verbatim what a corny line would have been in that situation but she actually said it. For a film dealing with a serious subject with a purported serious tone was the sheriff's assistant comic relief or just atrociously written. The car-chase scene near the end was pure farce.

This film is lazy on many fronts but none worse than the character of the mentor. This is the sole justification for why Charlie Starkweather would embark on a killing spree, although at least this is more justification then for why Caril-Ann would go along with it. This seems to me the biggest of corners cut to tell a story, surely there must have been more to Starkweather's background than this, and how accurate is this sub-conscious cloaked man as a part of Charlie's personality anyway? I think better analysers than me will be able to give a whole load more reasons not to see it, all I can do is tell you it's bad, very bad, and despite the occasional flirtation with so bad it's good, it doesn't even merit that.

First off, I have lived in Lincoln most of my life and I lived through the days of the killings. I know what went on. Now let's get down to the film. This is a very low budget film and it shows in every way possible. You are forever seeing microphones and set people on the screen. The cars are the wrong years. The killings started in December of 1957 and ended in January of 1958, yet the trees and other plants all have green leaves on them even though Nebraska is very cold in winter. They have Lincoln in the desert of what could be Arizona or Nevada while Lincoln is in fact located in typical Midwest farm country and is hundreds of miles from the nearest desert. They show Lincoln as a very small town when it was around 100,000 or more people at the time of the killings. The one real picture of Lincon in the film shows the capital building with fountains in front of it, even though the fountains were put in on what was once 15th street and is now called Centennial Mall many years after the killings. It shows Starkweather being captured in Nebraska by the Lancaster County Sheriff when in fact he was captured near Douglas, Wyoming by local Wyoming law enforcement. I could go on and on. There are just too many mistakes in this movie to list. To it's credit they did get the names and order of events right, but that's about all they got right and that's why I gave it two stars.

The story of the killings does deserve to be told in a movie and one that would be factual and show the fear the killings put in the people who lived though them, but this is not that film. If you want to learn about the killings and what they did to the city just do a web search for the name Charles Starkweather and you will learn the real story. If you want to watch a movie with so many mistakes you'll be laughing at it from beginning to end then watch this movie.