Review of True Story (2015) by Filmphonic — 18 Jul 2015

You might worry about the notion of a Jonah Hill & James Franco film that’s not a comedy, despite the fact that both have proven dramatic chops, but the performances from the 2 leads are nuanced enough to prevent them from being the main issue with ‘True Story’.

In many cases the real story a movie is based on ends up being more interesting than the film itself, this is not the case here, if you thought most of what we know about the Longo murder case is already out there you would be right, so with ‘True Story’ director Rupert Goold focuses attention on the man whose memoirs inspired it, journalist Mike Finkel.

The result however is the loss of any mystery element, everything is pretty much as it seems throughout, there is no real character development outside of Finkel’s own self-indulgent journey of reflection and ultimately you’re left with nothing to latch on to other than a few details about a murder case you’re probably unfamiliar with.

Rather than a pseudo-psychological character drama, ‘True Story’ is essentially a slightly tedious morality piece about journalistic integrity which paints the journalist as the sympathetic character and near victim, without the context of Finkel’s memoirs or knowledge of his motivations it simply doesn’t translate into an engrossing cinematic experience.

A little bit of courtroom drama, a pinch of murder-mystery, a slight detective story and a smidge of a journalistic tale, all of which add up to nothing much at all.

The Bottom Line….

‘True Story’ is a valiant effort at a journalistic drama, but with an uncompelling narrative and scant character development, it proves that just because a story is true doesn’t make it interesting enough for a feature-length film.