The Truth, The Whole Truth

The primary function of this post is to deliver another website exclusive movie review. Before that however lets delve into a little self promotion -

Tonights the night you see that World of Stu makes it's debut on Movie Eutopia as part of the Sobel Nation. Yes 9pm EST is the middle of the night here in the UK (2am the following morning to be precise) but being back on the air in any form is fairly exciting if I'm being honest even if it is a lot of hard work.

So to the review and this go around we are taking a look at True Story -

The film is of course a true story (the title is a bit of a giveaway) but like most movies in this genre Hollywood has taken some artistic licence in bringing the facts to the big screen.

The story in this instance is all about Christian Longo who became a wanted man after the discovery of the bodies of his wife and three children in December 2001. His son was found on the 19th December and over the next five days the other three bodies were uncovered. Longo however had fled the country and was temporarily put onto the FBI's ten most wanted persons list until he was captured in the small town of Talum which is situated about 60 miles south of Cancun. At the time of his arrest Longo was going under the pseudonym Mike Finkel which was the name of a writer who worked for the New York Times.

Around this time Finkel had been fired from his position at the Times after it was discovered that he had used fraudulent information in a story about the African Slave Trade. With his tarnished name he was unable to get work until the Longo story came to his attention and he began to communicate with the alledged killer.

Longo saw Finkel as his chance at proving his innocence and hoped that he would tell his story and help him obtain his freedom. Finkel did get a book deal with Harper Collins and visted Longo many times. In the movie we are led to believe that Finkel initially believed that Longo may be innocent and allowed himself to be played somewhat by the obviously manipulative suspect, though of course just how much of this is true is open to debate and may only be answered by reading Finkels book.

Half way through the film Longo's trial begins and despite telling Finkel he is innocent he actually pleads guilty to the murders of his wife and one of his daughters but claims he is innocent of the other two killings. His story is that he came home to find that his wife had killed his children, one of whom was on the bed with the other two supposedly 'in the water' (this is where the bodies were actually found). In a rage he claims that he killed his wife beofre discovering that his daughter was still alive but barely and the only thing he could do was put her out of her misery. It is around this point in the proceedings that Finkel realises that Longo is more than likely guilty as sin.

Longo is eventually found guilty of all four murders and is put onto death row where Finkel continued to visit him on the first sunday of every month (again according to the film) and where Longo admitted to the crimes one year after his conviction.

As with all real life stories that are turned into movies you as the viewer have to decide what is fact and what is an over-elaboration for cinematic purposes and sometimes the reality of the situation is so badly hidden un der the Hollywood gloss that it ruins the film as a whole. Happily however in the case of True Story this is not the case.

The two actors that are tasked with carrying this film are James Franco as Longo and Jonah Hill as Finkel and the pair of them put up great performances here. Franco is a terrific actor who easily sits in my top five actors of the modern age so I always look forward to his movies. As for Jonah Hill however I have to admit that I was never a fan of his work as he went from one unfunny 'comedy' to another, that was until 2013 when I saw him in This Is The End which I really enjoyed, though this may have been because it had Franco in it too. Then though I was completely taken by surprise by his performance in The Wolf of Wall Street which was for me a revalation, showing me that the man could act. Yes he has continued to make unfunny movies such as the Jump Street films but if he can put in performances like Wolf Street and the one here then this is surely the way forward.

Theres not much more to True Story than the horrific tale of a mans cold and calculating murder of his family and the subsequent relationship he builds with a disgraced newspaper writer but Hill and Franco do more than enough to keep you transfixed on the characters they play and making it less about the horrible crimes themselves.

With al of this said I am more than happy to give True Story 8 out of 10.