JoeKulik

The ONLY Reason that I didn't rate this movie a "10" is because it had too much gratuitous violence for me, so much so that it distracted me from the Excellent story line.

Indeed, the story line is quite imaginative and intricate. And the methodical unfolding of this story line over the course of the film was well planned and well thought out before pen ever even touched paper. The sets and the props provided a very realistic feeling of the gritty side of early 1950's Los Angeles. The acting by ALL the cast members was outstanding and the actors and their roles were well matched.

I only wish that this had been more of a "drama" than an "action" film. Aside from that "fly in the soup", I think that this is an Excellent movie that is well worth watching. In fact, I think that I'll watch it again,

I think that it's entirely possible that all the "evidence" against Matt was fabricated by the Govt just to step on him hard as a potential whistle blower. However, Matt's parents went completely off the rails when they chose to pursue the National Security angle over the $ex Charges against him. What turned off both Nashville lawyers is that they wanted to directly focus on the Fed Charges at hand, while the parents were trying to make an end run around them.

Had the parents allowed those lawyers to do their job, they may have uncovered that all the "evidence" against Matt was fabricated by analyzing the relevant metadata and Internet transmission logs. The father suggested at some point that such metadata analysis was possible, yet their Grandiose National Security Plan failed and Matt was left with not enough time to do such basic homework and ended up in prison.

I am in NO Way saying that the Fed Govt fabricated all that "evidence". I'm only saying that the opportunity to actually prove that was lost with the parents' wrong headed strategy and their obedient son's willingness to go along.

The son Dana in this tragic tale wasn't "born evil" as some have suggested. The way that Dana turned out can easily be explained by his affluent upbringing.

I graduated from Univ of San Francisco in 1973. It's a Catholic Univ much like its Catholic counterpart down the peninsula, the Univ of Santa Clara, where Dana attended some 20 years later. I met MANY children of Rich Families while at USF, and most of them were quite like Dana. They were all spoiled self entitled kids who were all brought up to believe that they deserved even a better life than Fate had so generously dealt them. They lacked any gratitude and humility whatsoever. In fact, a poor kid at USF I supplemented my income by writing term papers for those Rich Kids, those Rich Kids who thought that they were even above doing any real work to earn their college degree.

I completely blame Dana's parents, the ones he murdered, for the "evil" way that he turned out. They saw their Golden Sonny Boy as a kid who could do no wrong. "What ? Not my son ! He could NEVER Do something like that !"

What Dana lacked were parents who kicked his butt on a regular basis, and put his nose to the grindstone sweeping the floor and cleaning the toilets at the Family Business that gave him such a wonderful affluent life. Whatever they tried to do for their son, the one thing they never did was to instill an attitude of Gratitude within him. They somehow failed to teach Dana that true happiness comes from being Grateful to God for what you already got, rather than futilely searching for happiness by acquiring more and more and more money and materials possessions.