Woodyanders
Nebraska in the late 1950's. Angry and disaffected teenager Charles Starkweather (capably played with brooding intensity by Brent Taylor) and his blithely amoral 14-year-old girlfriend Caril-Ann Fugate (a fine performance by Shannon Lucio) embark on a brutal killing spree in the heartland of America.Director Byron Werner relates the engrossing story at a steady pace, makes nice use of the dry and desolate landscape, offers a flavorsome evocation of the 50's period setting, and maintains a grimly serious tone throughout. Stephen Johnston's tight and compelling script deviates quite a bit from the documented facts of the case, but nonetheless still paints a dark and disturbing portrait of a bitter penny ante loser with a burning chip on his shoulder due to his status as an insignificant nobody who desperately wants to prove to a cruel world that he's a "real" man by committing a series of heinous murders. Jerry Kroll lends sound support as the cagey and determined Sheriff Merle Karnopp while Lance Henriksen puts his familiar gravelly rumble to quite effective use as the voice of a gruff and browbeating mentor who eggs Starkweather on. The moments of sudden savage violence pack a pretty fierce punch. Werner's crisp cinematography provides a strikingly stark look. A solid little film.
notamoviefan
watched this movie recently. The production is amateurish, the storyline is rife with inaccuracy and the acting is more a parody than a serious effort at portraying a role. The cast and director of the movie should be ashamed of themselves and the writer should take an introductory course in reading comprehension so that he is better able to appreciate facts before writing his next plot. All in all, an absolute waste of time to watch this movie. There are a bunch of bloomers that have been pointed out in other sections and it merely illustrates the absolutely incompetence, and tardiness of the the group of less than intelligent people who took it into their hearts and mind that they were actually capable of making a movie.
Nickerdoodle2009
I AM RELATED TO THAT MONSTER! he is my second uncle. that movie was a horrible depiction of what he really was. That movie didn't have the right to even been produced! i know everything about him. my grandmother married his brother in the summer of 1969. by that time Charlie was already dead thank god, but his brother is the same as him. when my grandmother still worked at the hospital right after my her and my step grandfather got married, he met her at her car and slashed all four tires and then tired to kill her. the whole Starkweather family is nothing but garbage. i am the only on left out of my mothers side of the family that has the last name starkweather. they all had them changed. i will die and i will take the name to my grave! i know all that there is to know of him, he was a murderer. it was awful and i don't like the fact that my damn name is up on the t.v screen. this movie sucked and made me feel like crap. thats all that i have to say on the situation. but if any of you want to tell of anything like i dare you! i mean it. but if you have the balls to my E-Mail is Nickerdoodle2009@yahoo.com, feel free to say your opinions.
asam3122
I have studied Charles Raymond Starkweather for the past six months. I was excited when I saw that it would be on Showtime. Not being able to order Showtime, I picked up a copy at Blockbuster. The review is as follows: In the winter of 1958-1959, Charles Starkweather murdered 11 people with his girlfriend Caril-Ann Fugate as his accomplice. Their symphony of murder is told through this movie inaccurately. The hour-and-a-half runtime it has is too short to tell a story of this magnitude. They could've done so much more with the material they had. They could've explored Charlie's personality. What they produced is a film lacking depth and any reason. The psychological effects that Starkweather's crimes had on the public was not displayed at all. And Starkweather's murders are not portrayed accurately.This movie could've been great given a longer running time and an accurate portrayal. But what the viewing public is left with is a Lifetime Movie on a different channel.4/10
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