Movie Details
| Title: | True Confessions | |
| Director: | Ulu Grosbard | |
| Year: | 1981 | |
| Genre: | Drama | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.12.22 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Straight Time
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.12.22 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2022 I didn't know this movie existed until the Movies That Made Us podcast brought it up. Apparently, Dustin Hoffman was going to direct Straight Time himself but realized it was too much and brought in Ulu Grosbard to direct him, who then went on to make this picture with Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall about the Black Dahlia murder. What? How had I never heard of this movie!? And that was my mistake. In the festival circuit, if a film hits the schedule with a bunch of bankable stars and it's not the opening night film, it's usually a bad sign. It means that movie sucks so bad no one wants to distribute it even with Robin Williams or whoever. It's one of the most reliable signs that a movie is terrible (another being if the studio pays for the audience's food and drink). Similarly, if there's a movie out there starring Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall right after Raging Bull but it's never come up in like 30 years of watching movies? That's a bad sign. I mean The it falls right in between Deer Hunter, Raging Bull, and King of Comedy, Once Upon a Time in America. It SHOULD'VE come up. This movie is a total snooze-fest. I don't understand, it's like the filmmakers wanted to make the slowest most boring version of an interesting story. They've got the body, meticulously recreated I might add, and a Brenda Allen stand-in and Duvall is a cop in the 40s with a priest brother (De Niro) who's involved with a smarmy Charles Durning. You've got the 40s sleaze of stag films and pin up girls. Yet it takes like 20 minutes just to get to the crime scene, and another hour to get around to any detective work. For some reason they thought all this nonsense with De Niro's monsignor talking to other priests about collecting money for some land deal and going to weddings and other random crap - all at 40% speed - and who cares? It's so drowsy you forget there even is a murder. This makes me think the filmmakers must have had some other idea in mind, like the rekindling of a brotherly relationship in the backdrop of a historical crime that everyone knows? I really don't know what they were trying to do. Now, it's entirely possible that I've just read too much James Ellroy to see any other version of this era as captivating. That's likely. And even when a director like Brian De Palma tries to tell the Ellroy version on film it comes out terrible so maybe it's just... hard? to make a movie about a girl found cut in half in a vacant lot? i guess? But so often this feels like the bizarro version of Ellroy's novel where every time it was cool or surprising or interesting, you get another seen of people whispering through a confession booth. I'd say... the last, 20 minutes? were engrossing? But it's a lot to sit through before you get there. Tough. This is the first film of the weekend that I have not liked. Hopefully it's the only one! I'm 100% sure that I will love the next. |
