This was one of my favorite movies of 2011, and I watched and reviewed many that disappointed or bored me, or both...
It's an entertaining docudrama/biopic, as in the documentary (style) is fictional so actors play real life people, or real life people act as if they're other real life people around a frame story within the true life story: about a mortician played by Jack Black who winds up befriending and then killing an old lady that everyone interviewed within the movie thoroughly despises...
The problem with BERNIE is that it's too much of a propaganda piece for the real life murderer who was doing a life sentence when it was made, and the director wanted him to get out of jail, by making him look angelic while the dead woman (his victim) looks demonic...
And he did a good job of that, for sure, because basically what the movie does is provide a story of a woman who basically deserved to be murdered, and a man who deserved to NOT be punished for that murder, and that's just not right...
But it's Hollywood, who often sides with killers mainly because they're alive and can be charming, and no one can argue with their story since the person they killed are, well, dead, you know, and cannot defend themselves (The Menendez Brothers are a prime example)...
Beyond that overboard bias, BERNIE is worthwhile viewing, and provides actor AND singer Jack Black a great dramatic-twisting-comedic role...
The only person who overacts/overreaches and doesn't seem like part of a documentary but rather a one-sided black comedy is Matthew McConaughey, the prosecutor made into a kind of Archie Bunker style homophobic villain, acting as close-minded and red-necky as Shirley MacLaine makes the victim seem better off dead ie they are one dimensional cliches...
PS In particular, of the interviewees, the standout is indie-acting-cult-actor Sonny Carl Davis (the guy who got Brad Hamilton fired in Fast Times)... whose 2-minute explanation of the different parts of Texas is like it's very own movie.
It's an entertaining docudrama/biopic, as in the documentary (style) is fictional so actors play real life people, or real life people act as if they're other real life people around a frame story within the true life story: about a mortician played by Jack Black who winds up befriending and then killing an old lady that everyone interviewed within the movie thoroughly despises...
The problem with BERNIE is that it's too much of a propaganda piece for the real life murderer who was doing a life sentence when it was made, and the director wanted him to get out of jail, by making him look angelic while the dead woman (his victim) looks demonic...
And he did a good job of that, for sure, because basically what the movie does is provide a story of a woman who basically deserved to be murdered, and a man who deserved to NOT be punished for that murder, and that's just not right...
But it's Hollywood, who often sides with killers mainly because they're alive and can be charming, and no one can argue with their story since the person they killed are, well, dead, you know, and cannot defend themselves (The Menendez Brothers are a prime example)...
Beyond that overboard bias, BERNIE is worthwhile viewing, and provides actor AND singer Jack Black a great dramatic-twisting-comedic role...
The only person who overacts/overreaches and doesn't seem like part of a documentary but rather a one-sided black comedy is Matthew McConaughey, the prosecutor made into a kind of Archie Bunker style homophobic villain, acting as close-minded and red-necky as Shirley MacLaine makes the victim seem better off dead ie they are one dimensional cliches...
PS In particular, of the interviewees, the standout is indie-acting-cult-actor Sonny Carl Davis (the guy who got Brad Hamilton fired in Fast Times)... whose 2-minute explanation of the different parts of Texas is like it's very own movie.
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