Boston Strangler - Movie Review

Critics Score - 7 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

In the early 1960’s, in Boston, Massachusetts, a series of murders took place over the period of about a year and a half. Thirteen women were killed, their ages ranged from nineteen to eighty-five. One of the main things the murders had in common was the fact that the women were strangled to death, most of the time with their nylon stockings. A new film from 20th Century Fox, Boston Strangler, just dropped onto Hulu and it delves into the murders but focuses on the journalists covering the story and in some ways doing police work on the case behind the scenes. These two real women, Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole, worked tirelessly and against the grain in a male dominated workplace and broke open aspects of the story that deserve recognition. While this movie plays out like a journalism story, we follow the duo as they chase down clues and suspects, like Spotlight or the newer She Said, it also incorporates some aspects of a crime/thriller, as they come in close contact with suspects and potential killers. This Boston Strangler might not grab audiences by the throat, it isn’t a revelation of ingenuity when it comes to the genre, but it is a decently paced and well constructed suspense film that most critics and general audiences will enjoy.

SYNOPSIS - Our murderous venture begins over seven hundred miles from Boston, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1965, over a year after the last murder that’s attributed to the Boston Strangler, oddly enough. We’re in some sort of apartment building or co-ed college dorm, a man is listening to a college basketball game when he begins to hear thuds and strange noises from the next door apartment. He turns off his radio and the yells from next door get louder, he hears a woman’s voice, clearly in distress. We then see as the camera switches to inside the woman’s apartment, we see a TV with a shadowy figure in the reflection who walks over, turns on the set and a show of youngsters dancing with some music playing pops on and he turns up the volume. The neighbor comes over and knocks, yelling for the girl to answer or he’s calling the police, they soon arrive but only find the body of a young woman, laying on her bed in undergarments, dead by strangulation. The scene cuts and we get a crane shot tracking a vehicle, some onscreen text fills us in that we’ve changed locations to Boston, and this is three years earlier. The men in the vehicle are throwing out newspapers, sheets of folded paper put together in bunches, they had the previous days news stories written out and people used to read them, Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) steps out on her porch and grabs one.

As she sits at the table while her three children are eating breakfast and her husband kisses her goodbye, she opens the paper and cuts out an article entitled “New Suspect In Mail Truck Robbery”, clueing us into her character’s interests. When she arrives at her job at another newspaper, she asks her boss Jack (Chris Cooper) why they haven’t been covering these crime reports, Jack points to the crime desk where six men are covering all the leads and reporting for the paper. As Loretta begins to start her next writing assignment on a new toaster for the lifestyle section, she spots an article in a paper about a woman slain in her apartment, then quickly goes back to her desk and sorts through clippings until she finds another that reads “Back Bay Widow Strangled”. Thus begins the mental game of connect the dots. But as she looks up from her desk, she sees another woman who’s been doing undercover stories for the paper, Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), who Loretta singles out to try and work with on her suspicions about the murder connections. Once the two are on the case, they investigate and put the clues together as they try to work in tandem with the police in ascertaining who the killer is and get to the bottom of the unsolved murders.

I give this film some credit, the story progresses in a very logical and engaging way to get us to the conclusion it feels makes the most sense. I lay most of this praise at the feet of the director, Matt Ruskin, who also wrote the film’s screenplay. It’s not showy dialogue or groundbreaking screenwriting by any means, but it is more than sufficient. The performances were all pretty decent as well, nobody has any big showy scenes for the most part, Knightly has a few moments of intensity but they’re all fairly passable work. But one thing that was a bit off putting was Knightly trying her best to stifle her English accent and trade it in for a 1960’s Boston one. It wasn’t exactly the most believable or convincing and it’s quite strange she was even cast for the role save to have a recognizable face for the poster. When it came to the pacing of the film, as I mentioned it is quite solid through a majority of the almost two hour runtime, but it does drag out ever so slightly into the end of the second act. The color grading of the film is in lockstep with most every other period piece crime thriller, they drown us in dark grays and browns with hints of blues and greens, every day is overcast, which naturally fit in fine tonally with the sequences of killing and reports of murders being the main topics under discussion. There’s a very interesting story here and for fans of the true crime genre and journalism stories, this is one that’s perfectly passable and worth your time, especially if the real life events you’re not too familiar with.

SUMMARY - There is a reason why this film was dropped unceremoniously on Hulu and never given a theatrical run, it’s a mid-tier production with a few recognizable faces and it’ll attract a few more subscribers. Bottom line is this film is not to die for, but the Boston Strangler can definitely sneak up on you and might just get you in the end.