Blue Caprice (2013)

R - 93 min - Crime, Drama - 19 January 2013
Big Blue Sky Rating : 6.0/10

Director : Alexandre Moors
Writers : R.F.I. Porto
Stars : Isaiah Washington, Tequan Richmond, Tim Blake Nelson, Joey Lauren Adams

An abandoned boy is lured to America and drawn into the shadow of a dangerous father figure. Inspired by the real life events that led to the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks.

Beltway Sniper Story

In 2002, ten people were randomly assassinated in the Washington D.C. area by a duo called the Beltway Snipers. Blue Caprice, a film by Alexadre Moors investigates these events.

The film opens with the lush blues and greens of tropical Antigua, but to the young protagonist Lee Malvo (Tequin Richmond) having just been abandoned by his mother, this island paradise has become a prison. Just in time Lee is saved by John, a caring neighbour played Isaiah Washington. The pair soon depart Antigua for the US, Lee as John's adopted son.

Fast-forward a few months to Tacoma, Washington. John's pathological personality has begun to emerge. Father and son drift from couch to couch. John's other kids have been taken away by their mother, a restraining order officially filed. Enter firearms, and John's maniacal attempt to transform Lee into an automaton assassin begins.

John locates his ex-wife and kids in Maryland. Out for blood, John and Lee head east in a blue 1990 Chevy Caprice, what will become the epicenter for their killing spree. When they reach the Eastern US John's psychopathology is unleashed and Lee is forced to help avenge a fictitious, eternal grudge.

Director Moors shows us that Lee is undoubtedly a bright kid. He memorizes his combat manual in detail and applies the instruction with expert precision. Had he been a year older Lee may have applied these mercenary skills in the Army. We sense Lee feels remorse and does not want to become a hardened, senseless killer. In a touching scene, Lee steals, of all things, veggie burgers.

Post Boston Marathon bombings, this film resonates strongly of the psychologically excruciating manipulation of the underling by the elder. After the Tsarnev brothers why not keep this dialogue open? Or should we wait until after another docum-drama shows us the horrors, or another atrocity occurs?

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Saturday, October 5, 2013

Blue Caprice

Blue Caprice (2013)

R - 93 min - Crime, Drama - 19 January 2013
Big Blue Sky Rating : 6.0/10

Director : Alexandre Moors
Writers : R.F.I. Porto
Stars : Isaiah Washington, Tequan Richmond, Tim Blake Nelson, Joey Lauren Adams

An abandoned boy is lured to America and drawn into the shadow of a dangerous father figure. Inspired by the real life events that led to the 2002 Beltway sniper attacks.

Tough to understand the motives of those snipers.

"Who knows the secrets of the human heart?" The Crying Game

The strength and weakness of the docudrama Blue Caprice are the same: It does not attempt to explain the reasons two human beings would randomly kill 10 unknowing victims. So be it. Yet, if a drama, inspired by the true events of the 2002 sniper killings in the D.C. area, recreates, then depth, even if speculative, would seem in order.

Otherwise, I'm left with a hollow feeling that I could have researched the Internet in less time to get the story as it really happened with no "In Cold Blood" insight. Lee (Taquan Richmond) is the lost young man (abandoned by mom and dad), John (Isaiah Washington) is the father figure who harbors resentments against more than one person in his life. John has Lee learn to shoot guns and then channels him into slayings, many without resentments but overcast with the urge to cause chaos.

After retrofitting their Caprice to be a murder machine, the gruesome duo cause mayhem in the D.C.-Virginia area until caught napping in a parking area-- hardly romantic. But then this is hardly a romantic drama. Its greatest virtue is an unwillingness to posit motives, although the boy's missing parents and the adult's bitterness about the loss of his children and the neighbor who testified against his custody are contributors, no doubt.

As the Beltway snipers got the attention they sought, this comment from a citizen best reveals the panic that ensued: "We'd run through parking lots. I'd try not to get gas when I was with family. Once while I was pumping gas, I said to my boys, 'You have to get down on the floorboards.' "

The horror is that the massacre could happen at the hands of such inconsequential losers whose actions would be most difficult to predict. The reasons are probably many, but maybe the most telling is what Lee shouts to John, after he has punished the boy: "Dad, Dad, what did I do?"