This is another film that takes the "Let's tag along with a serial killer" plot approach, but it does manage to distinguish itself enough not to be considered a blatant rip-off.
The plot centers around Mickey (Wes Bentley), an amateur film-maker who seems to have the unbelievable luck of catching the local serial killer doing the dirty deed on video. While his buddy strongly advises against it, Mickey decides to take a chance and try to blackmail the killer into doing a documentary.
It turns out that Mickey is really good at investigating people, but James the killer (Mark Borkowski) is no slouch in that department either and soon gains the upper hand.
The film starts off strong and doesn't dilly-dally around when it comes to jumping right into the story. For a while, everything is pretty straight-forward with an aggressive film-maker and his reluctant but charismatic subject.
And then the mommy issues came into play on both sides of the fence. From this point on, the story seems to start flopping around a bit and my attention started drifting away as the twists and turns started hitting dead ends and the last shred of believability flew out the window.
I did like the killer character, even though the film did start to slather on the "he was such a nice guy" facade on a little too thickly. His nervousness at first being caught followed by the gain of confidence as he began manipulating the little twerp that was trying to blackmail him was played rather well.
The film-maker character seemed a little off to me, even more so when various substances were added to his personality. It's hard for me to see how someone who displayed being quite clever in the beginning would be making so many dumb mistakes. Even worse, he was never called on any of those dumb mistakes which would have made for a much more interesting ending to the story. (Fingerprints, anyone?)
I won't say that the film is completely bad, but it was disappointing.
Film information: The Perfect Witness
This film is also known as The Ungodly.
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