True Story (2015)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Simply Perfect

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

"True Story" from 2015 stars Jonah Hill and James Franco as writer Mike Finkel and killer Christian Longo, respectively.Finkel was a well-regarded journalist for the New York Times who fudged a story and combined five people into one, was caught, and was fired. He learns later that a man who murdered his wife and three children, Christian Longo, was caught in Mexico and was at the time using the name Mike Finkel. Intrigued, Finkel arranges a meeting.What follows is a bonding experience, where Longo claims to be a long-time fan of Finkel, and Finkel finds similarities between his own life and is impressed that he and Finkel even take similar types of notes. Longo asks that none of the information he gives Finkel be released until after the trial and promises him exclusivity. In exchange, Longo would like to learn to write the way that Finkel can and asks for pointers.Finkel begins to believe that Longo is covering someone and doubts his guilt. He also realizes that the story is more than article -it's a book.It's not until the trial that Finkel learns the true story.Good film about an actual case, but while it's effective, it doesn't have the bone-chilling quality it could have. The acting is good, particularly by Franco who has the showier role. The acting is done in a naturalistic style - a tiny bit more punch in a film like this might have helped as it lacks some necessary emotion.I think a stronger script or even more potent direction could have made this a truly devastating experience. As it is, it's interesting without being fascinating.

This film in a major spoiler is intellectual which turns off some folks but the real message is the irony of this- "Reporter from New York Times Gets Fired For Lying On A News Report While Murderer Who Lies His Face Off In Court Get Hired As A Reporter By New York Times." Now if you think about this, you understand why the Times has more and more often reported fake news in recent years. The "All The News That Is Fit To Print" has become "All The Propaganda That We See Fit To Print."This films nails this perfectly. What is interesting is how come more folks do not realize this. The story of Michael Finkel and his firing and then his relationship that develops with murderer Christian Longo is a drama worth telling. This film does not go into action which turns off some viewers.Rupert Goold Directs and co-writes the screenplay and does an excellent job challenging the intellect of the viewer and manages to point out a huge flaw in a main stream media which is too busy reporting public opinion polls and sensational disasters and not minding their knitting and reporting real true stories. That is the Irony here that is in the title of this film.

My expectations of this were really high. The concept of the entire thing was really fascinating, and based on a true story no less. But it ultimately fails to do anything interesting, even once. It starts out with some really artistic and compelling visuals, and I got excited. And while Jonah Hill, James Franco, and Felicity Jones all gave good performances, each with a scene to really shine, they do very little to help the movies apparent flaws. Which is mainly it being boring. The pacing is all over the place, never rushing, but not quite dragging. The writing was so-so, and things just kinda happened, I never really cared about what was happening, who it was happening to, or why. The cinematography is clean, a very David Fincher-esqe look, but that fails to help it in anyway, as it starts to feel like a shorter, less interesting, Zodiac.

It's hard for me to find this movie interesting. I didn't really get it. But yes, the opening seemed so promising. Not to mention the character of Christian Longo himself. He's some kind of crazy person or even a psycho, perhaps? He's so unpredictable. Looks stupid but turned out to be smart and so deceiving. This was actually so good, but I couldn't stop thinking that there was something missing. Why Longo chooses to use Finkle's identity was not so well explained. Maybe the dialogue which was not so strong. To me, the story was just not so well explored. This movie is based on a memoir of Michael Finkel. I usually love movies based on true story, but not this one.Sorry. I don't know. It's just not easy to grasp. I need to consult Wikipedia to fill the holes in my head.