True Story
True Story
PG-13 | 17 April 2015 (USA)
True Story Trailers

A drama centered around the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

Reviews
Comwayon

A Disappointing Continuation

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Abbigail Bush

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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Kaydan Christian

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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Jakoba

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

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blanche-2

"True Story" from 2015 stars Jonah Hill and James Franco as writer Mike Finkel and killer Christian Longo, respectively.Finkel was a well-regarded journalist for the New York Times who fudged a story and combined five people into one, was caught, and was fired. He learns later that a man who murdered his wife and three children, Christian Longo, was caught in Mexico and was at the time using the name Mike Finkel. Intrigued, Finkel arranges a meeting.What follows is a bonding experience, where Longo claims to be a long-time fan of Finkel, and Finkel finds similarities between his own life and is impressed that he and Finkel even take similar types of notes. Longo asks that none of the information he gives Finkel be released until after the trial and promises him exclusivity. In exchange, Longo would like to learn to write the way that Finkel can and asks for pointers.Finkel begins to believe that Longo is covering someone and doubts his guilt. He also realizes that the story is more than article -it's a book.It's not until the trial that Finkel learns the true story.Good film about an actual case, but while it's effective, it doesn't have the bone-chilling quality it could have. The acting is good, particularly by Franco who has the showier role. The acting is done in a naturalistic style - a tiny bit more punch in a film like this might have helped as it lacks some necessary emotion.I think a stronger script or even more potent direction could have made this a truly devastating experience. As it is, it's interesting without being fascinating.

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iainthepict

I watched this movie without being aware, beyond the two-line summary on Sky Movies, of the real-life events it supposedly portrayed. Amusingly enough, echoing the theme of the film, the summary was a little liberal with the truth. Longo didn't steal Finkel's identity. It wasn't identity theft. Longo simply used Finkel's name. Also, the time-line of when Longo did that was a bit murky. I guess we have to assume he'd read Finkel's NYT articles, up to an including the one with that stretched the truth, before he absconded to Mexico. On the whole, this film failed to deliver, on several counts, despite keeping my attention 'til the end. I guess I expected more, and kept hoping... The film posits the idea that the two undoubtedly flawed men had something in common i.e., they both indulged in lying, but to suggest their 'sin' was somehow equivalent is preposterous. Longo's approach to lying seemed to be compulsive and manipulative, whilst Finkel made one mistake. There is no suggestion in the film that Finkel was a persistent liar and, therefore, the idea that there were such similarities between the two lacks credibility. Only one man spun endless webs of lies, and if this movie is about deception, Finkel isn't the major culprit. Finkel's one lie was made with the best of intentions, albeit he breached the ethics of journalism. His purpose was honourable and what he did amounted to little more than a white lie. Turning the plot on such a line is stretching a thin idea to breaking point. This film is supposed to be about relationships, but one at least wasn't fleshed out in any meaningful way. At first, I though Finkel's wife was his sister; their interactions being more platonic than romantic. Whatever relationship they had wasn't obvious, and when it deteriorated, as it seemed to do, there was nothing substantial on screen to illustrate why. I got the impression she was unimpressed by the amount of time Finkel spent with Longo, but apart from pained looks, there were no further clues, either in the dialogue or in the characterisation. Speaking of dialogue, the flattery to which Finkel succumbs is surely juvenile writing. OK, there's only an hour and a half in which to present the story, but seriously, are we to believe a grown man was taken in by Longo's schoolboy rhetoric? Then we're led to believe that Finkel swaps journalism tips for Longo's story, ostensibly getting behind his facade and uncovering the true story behind the brutal murder of his wife and children. But there are no journalism tips, bar advice to avoid double negatives and a couple of parlour games. That advice comes back into play later, during a courthouse scene, but if it's meant to be a figurative, revealing moment, it falls short of any profundity. In fact, it's an embarrassingly banal moment. The true story is that, far from being a hard-nosed, investigative journalist, Finkel comes across as a gullible idiot. This is a drama, but its twists and turns are pretty much contrived. After Finkel gets a twinge of conscience and agrees to let the policeman have the information he got from Longo, we are left wondering just what that information was. We're not told, and if we're to surmise, there were no clues in the preceding hour. Nothing Longo told Finkel on screen up to that point could be construed as confessing to the murders and if he did as much in his writing to Finkel, we couldn't tell, because we weren't party to that content. Beyond a few frames in which we are presented with illustrated pages filled with moody and macabre images, which probably gave an insight into Longo's psyche, we can only speculate as to their written content, let alone the clues they supposedly presented. We are not shown enough of that content to put together the pieces of the puzzle. There was nothing substantive there. The audience might waver between guilty and not guilty, which means there was some drama, but this is not a psychological thriller with myriad twists and turns. Longo was playing mind games with Finkel, that's for sure, but if the former was the superior in terms of the psychological relationship, the latter was incredibly stupid. Neither the dialogue nor the acting built up that relationship to any effective level. The conversations between the two are well short of fascinating. We were left to assume that Finkel had been fooled, until the rather too obvious hint comes in through the disembodied voice of the Harper Collins publisher, who posed a leading question. This true story was nowhere near as interesting as it sounded. Finkel's tale of how he was taken in by Longo might be true, but it's pretty ordinary and if anything, damming of his professional ability. Far from being a journalist with a future, Finkel seems to have set a low standard and failed to achieve it. I pity anyone who's read the book.

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Floated2

True Story starring Jonah Hill and James Franco in a true fact drama based film, in which most would not assume by. Hill plays Mike Finkel, an ambitious young writer for the New York Times who's fired in 2001 after his bosses discover that he'd created a composite character for a Sunday magazine article on the African slave trade. Professionally disgraced, he retreats to the remote Montana home he shares with wife Jill (Felicity Jones), a rare book librarian. Unable to interest anyone in his story ideas, he becomes depressed until a caller asks for his reaction to the fact that Christian Longo, an Oregon man accused of killing his wife and three children, had been using his name while on the lam in Mexico.Scenes tend to pass by, where there tends to be a possible irresistible story as well as a way to redeem himself, Mike approaches the incarcerated Longo for a talk that quickly morphs into a deal: Longo will give him an exclusive if he'll agree to withhold publication until after the trial—and help him improve his own writing. What the audience watch in the film is quite a drama which showcases the lead actors dramatic acting chops. The film flows by smoothly, although it gets to a point where the film tends to become predictable, and where they could have included more for the audiences. However, knowing the film is based on true events, director Rupert Goold had his work set on him.

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jtindahouse

I recently reviewed 'Deliver Us From Evil' and was disgusted to find they'd used the tagline "based on a true story" when the story was in no way based on truth. I commented that films are desperate to be able to attach that tagline to their film because it is often considered a sign of quality right off the bat. 'True Story' takes it to the next level by actually calling the film itself this. It is indeed based on a true story and a very interesting one at that. Often the problem with true stories is that they struggle to have any element of mystery to them because the story is told so faithfully. As much as people will often say the truth is stranger than fiction, it rarely is the case.What we have here though is a story that, for any one who is not familiar with it, could easily come across as a mystery/thriller straight from the mind of a Hollywood writer. It reminded me a lot of 'Primal Fear' where you're never entirely sure just how genuine each character is in anything they say. Jonah Hill and James Franco were truly terrific in the lead roles. They're certainly more known for their comedic roles but whenever they step into a serious role, Hill in particular, they do stellar work. It's not always perfect, but for the most part it comes across as a very fine film. The ending could be considered a bit of a let down by some. One more twist in the plot was all that stopped it from really blowing audiences away, but alas that's not how the story happened and so that's not what we get - again an unfortunate thing we have to accept when dealing with true stories. Altogether though a surprisingly enjoyable film that I hope people take the time to see.

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