The greatest movie ever!

Good idea lost in the noise

Best movie of this year hands down!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

At the beginning, American newscasters briefly comment about the dramatic Amanda Knox murder trial. Anderson Cooper blurts out that Knox is a victim and talks about the "Italian media that was stacked against her." These comments set the tone as the Italian postal police (not the carabinieri or the law enforcement police) arrive at the residence of Amanda Knox in Perugia. On the surface, American Amanda Knox (Hayden Panettiere) was an intelligent and pretty honor roll student. In September 2007, at the age of twenty, she arrived in Perugia, Italy to study languages at the Foreigners' University (Università per Stranieri). With three other young women, she rented an upstairs flat in a countryside house. The other girls were two Italians and British student Meredith Kercher (Amanda Fernando Stevens). While the young women seemed to get along initially, tension brewed between studious Meredith and Amanda over the latter's sexual and hygiene habits. In October, Amanda met Raffaele Sollecito (Paolo Romio), a young Italian man studying computer engineering, and they became lovers almost immediately. Raffaele called her a free spirit: she was sexually promiscuous and smoked weed.On 1 November 2007 Meredith is found brutally murdered in the locked bathroom of the shared house. The investigative police found various people's actions suspicious, especially the flaws in the alibis which both Amanda and Raffaele had provided. When prosecutor Guiliano Mignini (Vincent Riotta) analyzed the crime scene, he immediately recognized that the "break-in" at one of the bedrooms was staged. After a bloodied fingerprint from African (Ivory Coast) Rudy Guede (Djibril Kébé) was found in the bathroom (his DNA was all over the victim's bedroom), he was arrested in Germany. He opted for a quick trial and was found guilty of murder; he received a 30-year prison sentence (that was later reduced). But Amanda and Raffaele apparently knew something that they did not tell. As Amanda especially had contradictions in her version, the police did not believe her. With events turning against Amanda, her parents, Curt (Clive Walton) and Amanda (Marcia Gay Harden), spent their resources and mounted a blistering campaign against prosecutor Mignini and even the Italian legal system. (They later faced criminal charges of slander in absentia.) The first verdict went against Amanda and Raffaele, who received initial sentences of 26 and 25 years, respectively. Then the verdict was overturned on appeal. Loaded with dramatizations and flashbacks, the movie does not always make the case clearly. And some facts may not be accurately presented. Whether Amanda was guilty or not guilty is the viewer's option, although it is almost certain that she was in the house on that fateful November night. Was Amanda culpable? Was she or was she not in Raffaele's apartment on the night of Meredith's murder? Why did she initially lie when she said her boss Patrick Lamumba at Le Chic murdered Meredith? Lumumba's skin was saved when his alibi was later confirmed. This author will pass no judgment based upon a movie, although it is thought-provoking. In general, it appears that – despite some mistakes – the Italian forensics and investigative analyses were exhaustive. Italy is a foreign country, after all, with different laws than we do. Its robust culture and society long predate our own. As the TV movie, made in 2011, does not end the story, several updates to 2014 appear at film's end. Even then, there was a final verdict later (Supreme Court of Cassation, 2015). The final court did not actually clear Amanda, but rather stated that there was not enough evidence to convict her. Mercifully, the case can never go to trial again. Picturesque filming occurred in Rome, not Perugia. There are many fine performances, especially by Hayden Panettiere, Marcia Gay Harden, and Vincent Riotta.

Would Amanda be in jail today -- and for the next 26 years -- if she'd come home when her mother asked her to? True to her seeming sense of entitlement, Amanda had told her frantic mother no. She comes across as a child of privilege with a petty and envious dislike for her more studious British roommate. Though I wasn't sure whether she was guilty before seeing the movie, I felt more certain of her culpability upon viewing it.The performances are strong -- I knew this flick couldn't be all-bad when I saw Marcia Gay Harden in the cast. But the movie seemed somewhat sloppy by hinting at corruption in the Italian system but leaving the question open. (The fact the Italians want to put Amanda's parents on trial doesn't add to their credibility.) The movie is also ambiguous as to the guilt of Amanda's boyfriend.In all, a very-well-told tale about murder in a red-roofed town that looked too pretty to be the scene for it.

Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy (2011) ** (out of 4) American girl Amanda Knox (Hayden Panettiere) travels to Italy to study but soon she's accused of murdering her roommate with the assistance of her boyfriend and another guy. Soon Knox's sex life and strange behavior become the key evidence in the trial, which she's convicted of but many seem to think a crooked Prosecutor is to blame. I first heard of this case soon after the real events happened and I remember that for the next year or so every media group was on the side that pointed the finger of guilt at Amanda. I lost track of the case until 60 Minutes did another episode on it and to my shock now everyone was saying that the girl was innocent and being framed by a questionable Prosecutor. This made-for-TV drama from Lifetime doesn't try to pretend to be a documentary and instead it purely wants to show that Amanda is innocent but for some strange reason the movie is never able to do this. There's no doubt that the intent behind this movie is to say that the Italian courts are full of evil people wanting to harm this angel-faced girl from Seattle but I personally need a lot more than just this. Not once are we ever really given an explanation for why Knox is innocent other than the Italians are bad people. This doesn't work for a number of reasons but the biggest one, in terms of this film, is that the Italian members are constantly made to give evil looks to the camera and after a while this just becomes laughable and it's a rather cheap way to try and make them look evil. I kept expecting the director and screenwriter to dress them all in black, put a mask on them and put knives in their hands. Another thing that doesn't work in the picture is that we never really get to understand the case, what actually happened or what might have happened. Yes, there are several re-enactments but they're all handled so poorly that you can't help but feel letdown. As with most "true story" movies, this one here changes a few facts around and tells a few lies of its own so needless to say people shouldn't be watching this thing expecting a documentary. I think the film should have tried to make its case a lot better and all in all it really does feel rushed and all over the place as if the filmmakers weren't sure what they wanted to tell or try to tell. The performances aren't too bad with Panettiere doing a nice job as Knox. I thought she was a lot better when she started to crack from the pressure and she's also quite nice when it comes time to address the courts. Vincent Riotta steals the film as the Prosecutor and Paolo Romio is good in his bit of Amanda's boyfriend. Marcia Gay Harden plays Amanda's mother and she's a tad bit too over-the-top during a few scenes. The story of Amanda Knox is far from over and let's hope a better movie will come out whenever the real story gets solved.

Please, whatever you do, do not use this movie as a means of deciding whether Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito are guilty or innocent. There are major factual errors in this movie. This movie makes the claim that a store owner identified Amanda as someone who bought bleach the morning after the murder within days of the murder. This simply is not true. That store owner did not claim Amanda was at his store until 10 months later. And he only made the claim when he was paid for an interview. Furthermore, no other evidence was ever produced to support this claim.The movie also definitively portrays Rafaelle as not calling the 112 number until after the postal police are there. Again, that is not true. The investigators reached that decision based on the clock on a nearby parking garage that was established to be about 12 minutes off.This movie plays very fast and loose with the facts. View it as enjoyable lifetime movie fluff if you will, but DO NOT decide Amanda is guilty based on this movie.