billyfish Review of American Crime

American Crime (2004 Video)

Enough to give one pause...or fast forward

[6/10 · 2 January 2005]

Well, I joke, but this really wasn't that bad of a movie, especially in the made-for-TV market. Cary Elwes' performance alone is worth sitting through the film. His quirky, neurotic documentarian wanna-be character is fun to watch, and you spend the first several minutes saying to yourself, "He looks a LOT like Cary Elwes, but..." The rest of the cast is solid if unremarkable, and the scenes that are supposed to be creepy are indeed so. What I liked about the ending was that it didn't tie everything up into a neat little package and drop it into our mail slot as the murderer did with his videotapes. The only thing you're sure of at the end is who WASN'T the murderer, because all the prime suspects are either incarcerated or dead...or are they? It's a fun twist on the murder mystery, with stories within stories, and the whole thing framed by documentary-style monologues and interviews.