Like I have said in the past, I am on a roll with watching movies. I am still kind of cinematically cheating on my other favorite actors in favor of another movie with Colin Firth in it. This one, in addition to having a number of actors that I know of in it, was about a true crime/unresolved mystery, which is another subject matter that particularly interests me.
The crime dramatized in this movie is known as the West Memphis Three, and I've seen it mentioned on r/unresolvedmysteries although it's not one that I'm familiar with. I read a quick summary of the case prior to watching the movie, although it would be interesting to now go back and read more in depth about the actual case.
The case has to do with 3 young boys who were found murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas in the 1990s. The movie was released in 2013, so it's fairly recent. According to the credits, it was filmed entirely in Georgia. This is the second true crime movie I can recall watching; the other one was Zodiac which was underwhelming. I have watched other movies about fictional crimes, and the mobster movie which is technically a true crime, but I personally categorize mobsters in a different section than general murderers/serial killers.
This movie reminded me of the other movies To Kill a Mockingbird and Jagten (The Hunt, a Danish movie) in that one of the themes was the prosecution of (possibly) innocent people for crimes. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus defends a black man accused of a crime, in Jagten, a man is accused and shunned by his neighbors for supposedly committing a sex crime against a child. In Devil's Knot, three teenaged boys are tried for the murders of the young children although they may not be guilty. Colin Firth plays a character somewhat akin to Atticus in that he's trying to prevent the boys from getting convicted and sentenced to death. The movie was categorized as a courtroom drama in Netflix, which is an apt description and one that sits nicely with me due to my affinity for Law and Order.
Aside from Colin Firth, Dane DeHaan and Mirielle Enos were in this movie. I don't think I've really watched anything else with Dane DeHaan in it (he was in one episode years ago of Law and Order SVU as a suspect, I think) but I don't mind seeing him since he's fairly nice looking and reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio a little bit. Mirielle Enos was in the show The Killing as one of the detectives; this role of hers was quite different in a number of ways. As the detective, her character was always wearing sweaters, no/minimal makeup, and wore her hair in a low ponytail. Her character in this movie was all made up, wore tank tops, and hair in an updo. Plus she had a southern accent in this movie, as did Colin Firth a little bit. I don't think his American accent is particularly bad; it was perfectly decent but I feel like it sounded maybe a little deeper than his regular voice. I haven't highly familiarized myself with his voice though, so I can't say for sure. Probably if I were more familiar with/used to him speaking in a British accent, I'd find the American accent in this movie to be a little distracting, perhaps.
As far as on my list to next watch, I've got a few things. Most/some are Peter Sarsgaard related things, one of which is Boys Don't Cry, which is also a true crime movie, actually. Peter plays the murderer. I still would not mind watching more Colin Firth movies, so I'll look through the other 6 on Netflix and see if anything strikes my fancy. I had wanted to watch The Stanford Prison Experiment movie and just got to doing that today, so that's no longer on my to-watch list. Oh. Inception is another one; I have it recorded on the DVR but since it was on TV I'm pretty sure it's probably been edited a little bit at least. And The Wolf of Wall Street, and a rewatch on the big tv of Shattered Glass, which I now own on DVD. Fun, right?
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