This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fantastic!

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

I'm torn in what to think about In Cold Blood. On one hand, it's a smart thriller that gives a taste of authenticity, being that it is based off a true story. The film was shot in the real locations the murder took place and it makes good use of black-and-white photography to give off a sense of realism. On the other hand, the pace of the film was excruciating slow. Except for the final half hour of the film, I was twitching non stop in my seat and every once in awhile, I caught my eyes drooping. A very good story to tell, but I wonder if the execution of the film was properly done.Anyhow, this thriller received unanimous praise for its authentic storytelling and how this film could have been passed off as a documentary. The film is based of a murder of a family that took place in a rural Kansas town in the early 1960's. The film is told almost exactly as the real murder went down. The black and white camera work was a good idea because it adds a realistic feeling to the film. The house where the murder took place was actually used to replicate the murder scenes for the film. Even people who were associated with the murders such as neighbors, friends, etc were played by themselves and I thought it was really cool. The performances from everyone came across as natural thus transforming their characters to a near life-like state.This film is about a pair of ex-cons named Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) who are meeting in Kansas, thus breaking the terms of their parole. They plan a robbery based on information from a former cellmate of Dick's in regards of ten thousand dollars worth of cash. Once they robbed the cash, they plan on moving down to Mexico to escape from the law enforcement. However, things don't go as planned. They end up killing all four members of the Clutter family only coming away with a measly 43 dollars in cash. Now they are truly on the run from the law. But if Detective Alvin Dewey (John Forsythe) has a say, Perry and Dick will find their way at the end of hangman's noose before all is said and done.The film is a very small film and the cast is near unrecognizable (However, some of you might recognize Scott Wilson who played Herschel in the popular The Walking Dead series). Despite the relative unfamiliar faces, the performances come across as natural. It's good the film does not feature any star power because it would have undermined what director Richard Brooks was trying to do. He was trying to recreate the events that happened as real as he could and having big name stars would not have helped his cause. I really enjoyed these performances. Robert Blake performed Perry very well. Perry was the more sensitive character but he can be violent. Dick, played wonderfully by Scott Wilson is more of the manipulator, the man who gen get people to bend to his will. He is also a dreamer, as he dreams for money and escape from America. The two actors had great chemistry with each other, which added on to the natural tone of the characters.This film is not for everybody. It was certainly made very well. I had a huge problem involving the pace of the film. It seemed to move only at a snail's pace especially during the second act. The film also has a sense of trickery to it, which may tick some people off. The first minutes of the film shows the first half of the murder before it dwindles to the next act. I started wondering if we were ever going to see the second half of the murder, when it suddenly happened towards the end. Those scenes were hard to watch, but they were undoubtedly powerful. The beginning and the end of the film are the best sections of the movie. The murder act itself and the aftermath/sentence of the two men were two scenes that were well-done. Also, I had mixed feeling about the score composed by Quincy Jones. On one hand, the score itself was great and is often thrilling. But on the other hand, the music is what you would hear in a Hollywood horror film and that's exactly the opposite of what Brooks was trying to do-not to Hollywoodize his film. Personally, I accepted the use of the music after much thing but just barely.The film does provide some themes to ponder about. The two guys are from different cultures and backgrounds, but they were attracted to each for the same goal. To rob money. The film also shows how emotion goes into the thinking. Because of the result of getting 43 dollars, it became an unfortunate turn of events for the Clutter family who were about to lose their lives due to bad information. The film is eerie, sad, and sometimes quite boring. This story was actually researched by Truman Capote and this research was turned into a screenplay by Richard Brooks. The screenplay was a very well-written one at least.Overall, I generally liked In Cold Blood although I'm not over the moon about it as other critics are. I loved the authentic tone of the film and the performances are very natural. They bring Brook's words to life as if they were their own words. But the film is very slow, and I found the second act to be painful to sit through. But there is no denying how effective the film is and the payoff is very powerful. I would recommend this film, but be prepared for a movie that takes its time to tell the story.My Grade: B-

( In Cold Blood (film) (1967) ) encapsulates everything scary I remember from the 1960s when I was young.And it's all black and white like it was in the sixties, right?The actual event happened not far from here, movie recalls the fear each time I view it, similar to whenever I read about a tornado that hit around here something like 60 years ago, same chills.In fact in some of the ICB scenes, I remember being in those places at some time when I was alive.Before I could read, when life was like ICB in the places I ever went, I thought every highway sign said Coffee on it, speed signs, turn signs, overhead directional signs, yield signs, stop signs, do not enter signs, one way signs, cliff signs, all said Coffee. Neon "PAY TOLL" spelled neon "Drink Coffee", coffee right here, coffee.It was impossible to walk down the street and back in those days and to not be reminded of Coffee for some reason. Or was it Coffeyville?Back then all the signs said Coffee but who knows if that wasn't just a finger boner or autocorrect boner. I do not know, I was too young.For those reasons I hate everything about ICB and therefore give it 10 because I hate it so much. It's so real, it's scary, 10, automatic, case dismissedThat's confusing enough and not too confusing.Also a teacher at my HS was cast as a constable or something in ICB. I'm sorry now I tormented him.Maybe not the best movie ever but doggone scary and definitely well above the 90th percentile. The scariest, most visceral depiction of a perception of reality I am able to recall without thinking harder than I prefer to do.I always shudder thinking about "Psycho" for the same reasons, also

Death comes calling twice over in this grim, gripping depiction of the real-life murder of a Kansas farm family and the subsequent arrest and prosecution of their murderers.At its core, "In Cold Blood" is a powerful argument against capital punishment, suggesting that society is no less depraved than killers Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson). At least the killers can't be accused of possessing reason in snuffing out human life."How can a perfectly sane man commit an absolutely crazy act?" asks a reporter, played by Paul Stewart. The answer, as presented here, is that neither man was sane, nor was the system that ordered them killed.In one of many chilling moments, Hickock explains how he favors capital punishment: "What's wrong with revenge? I've been revenging myself my whole life."But "In Cold Blood" is no celluloid treatise about a social issue. It makes no attempt to soft-soap the nature of Smith and Hickock's crime, with writer-director Richard Brooks shooting the Clutter massacre in a harrowing if not graphic fashion. There are many ghastly moments on screen, but what you don't see is worse for what it leaves to your imagination.Where Brooks does hedge is in the presentation of Smith as a troubled, sensitive soul pushed into killing by cruel circumstance. There's an annoying tendency to go to psychiatry as if everything that the criminals did could be explained away as psychosis rather than meanness. Much time is spent by Stewart's reporter character discussing how Smith and Hickock formed a "third personality" who was the real guilty party in the case. Given how seriously and factually the story is otherwise presented, the Freudian focus comes off as cheap and simplistic.The nature of Smith's role here versus what it was that night in Holcomb, Kansas has been much debated. What can't be debated is the effectiveness of the "you-are-there" format the film takes, or the lived-in performances of Blake and Wilson. Brooks, following the example of Truman Capote's source book, takes a journalistic approach to the material that is sometimes dry but establishes a mood of overwhelming dread.Speaking of "dry," John Forsythe is quite a bit of that in a positive way, playing Alvin Dewey, one of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation detectives assigned to the case. As a counterpoint to the psychopathic Smith and Hickock working the investigation, he shines especially in an interrogation scene where Smith is told he made a key mistake by leaving what another detective calls a "living witness."Who was this living witness? Some argue it's an inmate at a prison with whom Hickock discussed the Clutter crime. Others say it's whichever of the perpetrators watched while the other killed. But the visceral work of Brooks, and cinematographer Conrad Hall suggest another possibility: You the viewer.Whether or not you think the crime is also in the punishment, "In Cold Blood" has lost none of its power to make you care.

My feeling toward "In Cold Blood" echoes Vito Corleone's opening statement of the Five Families' meeting: "How did things ever get so far? It was so unfortunate, so unnecessary." Indeed, what can be more deplorable than four lives bought at such a cheap price as forty dollars? Six, if you dare to count the killers.Richard Brooks' "In Cold Blood" chronicles with a documentary-like precision the whole chain of events that lead to the infamous Clutter Massacre in November 1959. Two ex-convicts, Dick Hicock and Perry Smith, a charming con-man and a tortured Korean-War veteran, broke into the farm of a respectable God-fearing Kansas family and killed father, mother, daughter and son in the titular way, without any other motive than stealing ten thousands dollars hidden in a safe, some tip from Hicock's former cell-mate, as wrong as tragic. It sealed the Clutters' fate as the two young killers insisted on leaving no witness.The narrative strikes for its realistic depiction of all the unfortunate circumstances that made this crime possible. Not to diminish Brooks' merit but most the credit goes to the author of the original story of the same title, Truman Capote. Driven by what could be seen as morbid fascination, Capote approached in an unorthodox yet modern way a seemingly fait-divers story. And for reasons, although we see the two bodies swinging under a tight rope at the end, are we really that satisfied that Justice was done? Society takes its revenge but what a thin consolation after such a waste of lives, including the killers.Let's focus on the killers because that's where the intellectual challenge lies, and because the story primarily deals with them. There's no way to feel any sympathy for their actions, but the film intelligently allows us to channel our sentiments toward a more magnanimous perception. At one point, the journalist, who should've been identified as Capote (one of the film's minor flaws) makes the following diagnosis: the two men could never kill anyone, but together they formed a third personality capable to commit the irreparable. It shows that the two men could never kill alone. Hicock's eagerness to kill has the resonance of desperation and he later explains to the police officer (John Forsythe) that he counted on Smith to be the real 'trigger', since he already killed a man, but then Smith reveals that he never killed 'that guy in Vegas'. Some natural born killers! When they use a stolen checkbook, Hicock uses his charms and smooth talk for more benign crime while Smith seems to drown his soul into a constant depressed state. What a waste indeed, Hicock would've made one hell of a salesman, Smith, a tormented artist, but they lost their soul somewhere and had to vent their anger on the furthest thing to their existence: an ordinary, happy family. That poignant contrast is simply a waste making up for another waste. That's how it works and the way it fails. Interestingly, the film is from 1967, the year saw the release of the groundbreaking "Bonnie and Clyde", one of the New Hollywood landmarks that paved the way to a less Manichean approach to outlaws and more realistic take on violence. Yet Brooks wasn't a newcomer in Hollywood and his portrayal of violence is less explicit than in Penn's masterpiece. However, there's something extremely fresh in the shocking realism he uses, transcended by a haunting black-and-white photography, from no one less than Conrad Hall. And I don't think any scene shook me more in my life than the killing of the Clutter Family.The murder sequence is kept till the end to leave us time to analyze the killers before the killing and be in the opposite situation than the jurors. We're not there to play society role, but to understand what kind of mess and waste can lead to another. After the murder, the film's pace is faster as to show how fast things go. I was surprised that the film was listed in AFI's Top 10 Courtroom Dramas although the trial doesn't last longer than 10 minutes. The conclusion on the Death Row leaves us contemplating a system, whose own actors assess the uselessness. They're all disillusioned yet no one would deny that Justice must be done, not even the killers. Hicock respects the idea of revenge since that's what he tried to do all his life.There's no message, no preaching in "In Cold Blood", simply an invitation to understand why tragedies have and will always happen. And for its meticulous attention to detail, the film was shot in the same Clutter house and the actors Perry Blake and Scott Wilson bear uncanny resemblance with the actual killers, "In Cold Blood" is a cold and bold take on banal horror with strong sociological resonance. It's also one of the best pictures of the year, one that should've been nominated instead of the anachronistic "Dr. Doolittle". One criticism though, I'm less impressed now by what amazed me at the first viewing: the jazzy Quincy Jones score and the use of 'clever' transition cut, as they betrayed a too artsy approach to a rather austere subject.Ironically, the greatest looking shot of the film wasn't expected and worked as a tribute to the genius of Conrad Hall. The final monologue of Perry Smith relating his last happy memory as a prospector in Alaska with his father, with reflection of rain forming tears in his face is the epitaph of these souls who've lost the sparkle of humanity as a reaction to the hell they went through, and a premonition to the destiny of Robert Blake. Blake constantly refers to Bogart in "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" a movie where he starred, as if his reality served the fiction. How ironic that the fiction would serve his reality, as if he was doomed to carry a shadow of truth in all the roles he played.