I'll keep this brief. I liked the film up until about halfway through when it became clear that absolutely nothing was going to happen.
I thought there would at least be an interesting twist; there wasn't.
The conversations between the leads should have been engaging but they weren't and I got the sense that James Franco and Jonah Hill were struggling to act seriously during their scenes together.
There's a particular scene involving Hill's wife and Franco's character which is just unbelievably stupid and pointless. There were so many red herrings in terms of character reactions to things (mostly by the wife) and set ups for future plot events which never materialised.
The film gained some momentum during the court scene, mostly just because of the graphic and disturbing scenes of child murder, but this quickly fizzled due to poor script and/or story writing.
The end credits state this film was written based on a true story and whilst I have nothing but empathy for the real life people affected by these events, this film was a waste of talent and should have been much better executed.
5/10 (I didn't switch it off though in hindsight, I should have)
I thought there would at least be an interesting twist; there wasn't.
The conversations between the leads should have been engaging but they weren't and I got the sense that James Franco and Jonah Hill were struggling to act seriously during their scenes together.
There's a particular scene involving Hill's wife and Franco's character which is just unbelievably stupid and pointless. There were so many red herrings in terms of character reactions to things (mostly by the wife) and set ups for future plot events which never materialised.
The film gained some momentum during the court scene, mostly just because of the graphic and disturbing scenes of child murder, but this quickly fizzled due to poor script and/or story writing.
The end credits state this film was written based on a true story and whilst I have nothing but empathy for the real life people affected by these events, this film was a waste of talent and should have been much better executed.
5/10 (I didn't switch it off though in hindsight, I should have)