Review of The Riverman (2004) by Daniel D — 21 Apr 2018

Forget this was a made-for-TV movie. This was just a good (but not great) movie.

The performances by Bruce Greenwood and especially by Cary Elwes were quite compelling if not necessarily accurate portrayals of Keppel and Bundy.

I was let down a bit by the script because it didn't tell me enough about the hunt for Ridgway or about Bundy's motives for helping Keppel find him. Did Bundy want the files because he got off on the crime scene photos? We know he tried a number of ploys to delay his execution...was his involvement in the Green River case just a ploy? Was he trying to atone for what he had done? Was he worried that he would be outdone by the Riverman? The movie doesn't explore that enough. I feel like it needed to be about 30 minutes longer in order to do justice to the material.

But the best reason to watch this is Cary Elwes's chilling portrayal of Ted Bundy's confession. Elwes was not so much trying to imitate the real Ted Bundy as much as he was trying to create his own serial killer character or get into Ted's mind instead of his actual demeanor or the way he actually talked. The real Ted Bundy was calmer and cooler than this. He didn't sound like a monster...he seemed like a nice, sincere, smart, charming guy on the surface. He had everyone fooled.