Murder in the Heartland (1993)A wanna-be tough guy and his 14-year-old girlfriend go on a murder spree. Director:Robert MarkowitzWriter:Michael O'Hara |
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Murder in the Heartland (1993)A wanna-be tough guy and his 14-year-old girlfriend go on a murder spree. Director:Robert MarkowitzWriter:Michael O'Hara |
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Tim Roth | ... | ||
| Fairuza Balk | ... | ||
| Kate Reid | ... |
Pansy Street
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| Brian Dennehy | ... |
John McArthur
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| Randy Quaid | ... |
Elmer Scheele
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| Roberts Blossom | ... |
Gus Meyer
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| Tom Bower | ... |
Marion Bartlett
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| Rondi Reed | ... |
Jonette Fox
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| Bob Gunton | ... |
Governor Anderson
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| Ryan Cutrona | ... |
C. Lauer Ward
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| Angie Bolling | ... |
Clara Ward
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Jake Carpenter | ... |
Robert Jensen
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| Heather Kafka | ... |
Carol King
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Don Bloomfield | ... | |
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John Hussey | ... |
Mr. Jensen
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A wanna-be tough guy and his 14-year-old girlfriend go on a murder spree.
Why anybody would want to retell the story of Charles Starkweather so many years after the events that made him notorious is beyond my comprehension.
Perhaps it was just meant to be a character study: Tim Roth dominates the entire show as a passionate, capricious, and utterly fascinating Starkweather.
The film disturbs me because I doubt that the real Starkweather was so interesting. Contemporary accounts suggest he was a sociopath unable to calibrate his responses to all those negative situations of life: envy, frustration, depression. The director has done a great job; the question is, why.
While this film is not well known compared with Pulp Fiction, even Rob Roy, Roth's performance is spellbinding - at least as good as his role in Reservoir Dogs.
It deserves to be seen, as a landmark of late 20th century, one of the really great performances by an actor, rather than a star turn by an overhyped PR product.