This gets off to a poor start by losing its nerve, and becoming a very conventional sermon. Of all the ways to tell the story of the Moors murders, they chose a police procedural; a genre that dull-witted citizens can watch in their safe living rooms without being exposed to anything particularly troubling; and learn some lesson they can usually forget by lunch tomorrow. In order to take viewer identification off of Brady and Hindley, we arrive late in the sequence of things and are offered instead the protagonist/viewpoint of David Smith, a belated accomplice. 4 out of 5 of the crimes of Brady and Hyndley are already over. And the movie is too polite to name their grotesque acts.
It would have helped if they specified their deeds, and made the two as grotesque and depraved as they actually were. Instead any detail that would drive home the horror and revulsion of their crimes is lost in deference to 'good taste.' The movie keeps hedging its premise. It flirts with banality in offering details like a lisping police sergeant, but providing almost no detail about the murders. This is a movie where we spend maybe 2 hours with the killers, and zero time with any of the 5 victims. Just what Brady and Hindley needed, more exposure. The most they can spare for the victims is a few images before the crawl. Bizarre.
It's well-acted, but mostly ends up being a bland, forgettable study of police work, rather than the vivid, horrifying portrayal of evil that is now long overdue. Audiences will still need to ask their older relatives, precisely what it is Brady and Hindley did to deserve their exceptional shunning.
It would have helped if they specified their deeds, and made the two as grotesque and depraved as they actually were. Instead any detail that would drive home the horror and revulsion of their crimes is lost in deference to 'good taste.' The movie keeps hedging its premise. It flirts with banality in offering details like a lisping police sergeant, but providing almost no detail about the murders. This is a movie where we spend maybe 2 hours with the killers, and zero time with any of the 5 victims. Just what Brady and Hindley needed, more exposure. The most they can spare for the victims is a few images before the crawl. Bizarre.
It's well-acted, but mostly ends up being a bland, forgettable study of police work, rather than the vivid, horrifying portrayal of evil that is now long overdue. Audiences will still need to ask their older relatives, precisely what it is Brady and Hindley did to deserve their exceptional shunning.