Review of The Gray Man

One thing that has always bewildered me about movies portraying true events is the film makers' habit of changing the story to suit their Hollywood vision. This movie did a surprisingly good job of sticking to the facts, however, it still fails to be 100% truthful. For instance, it was not Grace Budd, but her little sister Beatrice who was asked to fetch her brother from his friends house on that first meeting. Fish didn't lay eyes on little Grace until the second visit to the Budds' house at which point he immediately decided to dupe the family into letting him take her away with him. Also, detective King finds a clipping in Fish's rooms saying that the Gaffney boy's corpse was found in a trash bin, but in fact, despite Fish's later confession that he dumped the boys remain in trash dumps, the body was never recovered. One more thing that the movie decided to change, maybe for effect, was Fish's arrest. He did not attack the detectives with a knife, but rather went willingly. These details it chooses to change (as well as a few others) aren't incredibly significant, but why change them at all? Certainly the story of Albert Fish needs no twisting or exaggeration to be one of the most horrific tales in American History. The film is an abbreviated account of years of Fish's criminal history. In addition to making very brief mention of his crimes against Billy Gaffney and Francis McDonnell and focusing mainly (as the media did at the time) on the murder of Grace Budd. It also chose to leave out some of the more unsavory details of his sexual paraphilia, such as his habit of soaking alcohol soaked cotton into his rectum and lighting it on fire, also omitted was his fetish for eating human feces and urine. Perhaps the filmmakers didn't want it to be a stomach-turning horror fest. However, as a crime drama it does just fine. The acting is not spectacular which gives the film a bit of a "made for TV" feeling. But the chronology and main details of the investigation were pretty right on, including many small details and direct quotes taken right out of case files and court room transcription. I would have liked them to spend a bit more time detailing the criminal trial as it was very revealing into Albert Fish's psychopathy. All in all the movie kept me entertained and I was impressed by the inclusion of minor details and the accuracy of the story telling.