SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

kylelejames Just got DVD. Loved it. Good story with a lot of twists. A serial killer you sympathize with but that only makes him more dangerous!

scoup Good serial killer flick.Production values were not stellar, but it might have been the director's aim to go "real" looking.Both male leads were good. The beginning was somewhat slow and you have to suspend some reality to imagine that a serial killer would just sit there and have a conversation.What keeps the movie going is the viewer's desire to see who's going to turn on the other first. There are several plot twists which were interesting.Ending - I liked.If you are looking for an above average horror movie take a peek.

MBunge It's usually easy to notice the big things that go wrong with a film. One of the lead actors might as well be carved out of stone or the director has no idea how to end a scene or the script wanders about the countryside like a lost little girl. A lot of times, though, it's getting the little things right that elevate a movie from run-of-the-mill schlock to something worthwhile. The Perfect Witness gets just enough of those little things right to make this a decent flick, even though it gets its one big thing slightly wrong.Mickey Gravatski (Wes Bentley) is a recovering drug addict who's been reduced to living with his aged mother. He has pretensions of being a filmmaker and has been obsessively pursuing a morally unorthodox way of getting his big break in show business. Mickey has been tracking a local serial killer and when he finally catches him on video killing a girl, he threatens to turn the tape over to the police unless the killer lets Mickey make a documentary about him. The murderer, James Lemac (Mark Borkowski), reluctantly consents and lets Mickey into his world…but only long enough to kidnap Mickey's aged mother. That's when James makes it clear that a documentary will be done, but only on his terms and Mickey is forced to scramble for a way to save his mother and himself.The Perfect Witness has much in common with many mediocre to bad films out there. The dialog is pedestrian, the camera work is mostly just okay and plot doesn't have much flow or pace to it. However, it consistently gets so many little moments absolutely right to distract you from its weaknesses and that starts from the very beginning. The movie opens with Mickey in a dark alley. He has his camera sees a woman burst out of a doorway, trying to escape from Lemac. Mickey is dozens of yards away and films Lemac stabbing the girl to death, then barely escaping with his life when Lemac sees him and chases after him.Here's how filmmakers Thomas Dunn and Mark Borkowski get it right. Mickey's plan to blackmail a serial killer into doing a documentary is repellent and brutally selfish. He's really a terrible person for thinking of something like that, let alone trying to go through with it. But the audience doesn't know that when we first see Mickey in that alley. We don't know who he is or why he's in that alley, only that he witnesses a murder and then flees from the killer. Not only does that lead the viewer to empathize with Mickey, but you naturally classify him as "the good guy" because he's presented in uncompromised contrast to the bad guy. Even the way the scene is staged, Mickey is far enough away from the killing that you don't judge him for not trying to stop it. That opening scene is then followed up by some relatively subtle business that establishes both Mickey's down-on-his-luck circumstances and his desperate desire to make something of himself.So, a connection is formed between the audience and Mickey. They're led to see him as "the hero" and then given the context of his life and what he's trying to do about it. That's when we find out about Mickey's awful agenda but by then, we're invested enough in the character to care. This story could have easily begun in a different way that didn't engage the viewer at all. It could have started with Mickey getting the idea of his serial killer documentary or dropped us into the midst of Mickey's efforts to track the killer or his planning of how to get him on film to blackmail him. The problem is that my reaction, and I think the reaction of others, to that would be…"Why should I give a damn what happens to this horrible Mickey guy?"These filmmakers understand that what Mickey is planning to do is awful and he's an awful person for doing it, so they need to get the viewer to engage with Mickey and care about him, even if in only a shallow way, before revealing his plan. I have seen so many pathetic excuses of motion pictures where the people involved have obviously never considered the nature of their story or the need to appeal to the audience. They're clearly caught up in how "edgy" and "cool" they think they are and just as clearly expect the audience to almost feel privileged to be able to see their cinematic masterpiece. The Perfect Witness never does any of that. It's always hitting the correct note in the right way to get and keep the audience's attention.With all those little things just right, it becomes easy to forgive the film for kind of floundering for a point. This thing does not have the pace or plot to be a thriller and instead is going for more of a character-driven drama, setting up Mickey and Lemac as mirror image addicts with mother issues. But I don't think these filmmakers ever quite figured out what the point of that reflection was supposed to be and where it was going to lead to. That sort of confusion is usually fatal to a movie, but so much else about The Perfect Witness works so well that here, it's a minor annoyance.The people who made this film are people who should make films for a living. That may sound like faint praise, but with all the filmmakers out there who should really be cleaning out septic tanks and doing land surveying for the local zoning board, it isn't.

Vomitron_G Now which movie-lover doesn't love the following: You walk into a theater having absolutely no expectations whatsoever concerning the film you're about to watch. Then you walk out, approximately 90 minutes later, deeply impressed about what you've just seen on the big screen. Shamefully, I have to admit that my case was even a bit worse (and therefore the experience was even a bit better): I already had some expectations walking into that theater, and they weren't very optimistic. I assumed a film with a premise like THE UNGODLY could be either very good or it would just suck big-time. Nothing in-between. Just to be on the safe side, I was betting on the latter. Never was I so foolishly wrong. THE UNGODLY can easily be considered as one of the best movies about a serial killer to come out over the last 20 years (or even longer, if you take in consideration excellent movies like DERANGED and HENRY: A PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER).Actor Wes Bentley (the teenager with the cam-corder in American BEAUTY) is allowed to play with a bigger camera this time. He portrays Mickey Gravitski, a struggling filmmaker with no job and a severe alcohol & drug addiction. One night, he coincidentally succeeds in recording a murder committed by a notorious serial killer. However, it turns out that it wasn't all that of a coincidence that Mickey was at the right place at the right time the night of the murder. Mickey gets in touch with serial killer James Lemac and uses his footage to blackmail him. He wants Lemac to be the subject of his documentary.Being from Belgium myself (and after having read the synopsis) I couldn't help but thinking about our own Belgian little movie (our national cinematographic pride & joy, if you will) with the same subject matter released in 1992: C'EST ARRIVÉ PRÈS DE CHEZ VOUS (AKA MAN BITES DOG). And that was also the reason for my distrust: A movie with the same shaky documentary-style camera, without the outrageous black humor but with lame semi-philosophical twaddle instead? Wrong! Director Thomas Dunn indeed keeps the camera close to the actors' skin and the cinematography is often dark, gritty and depressing. But it always feels like a real film. The two most stellar elements of THE UNGODLY are the two leading actors and the plot. I don't know if Wes Bentley also might have any hidden comedian talents, but he sure can put down very believable, serious characters with rough edges. The young man simply looks tormented throughout the whole movie. But the most positive surprise definitely was newcomer writer/actor Mark Borkowski. He's not even a very young guy anymore, so where has he been all of his life? The way he shuffles around on screen, his (figuratively) scarred character-face, his sudden violent outbursts and especially his Brooklyn accent made me think a lot about Harvey Keitel. And I'm even convinced our dear Harvey couldn't have portrayed James Lemac in a better fashion.And then I also mentioned the plot, right? Well, instead of just registering Lemac's deeds & commentary and following him with a camera (much like the aforementioned MAN BITES DOG and HENRY did), THE UNGODLY manages to tell an intriguing story that even takes a few curves into the unexpected. The psychological cat & mouse power-plays between Mickey and James (who's blackmailing who actually?) are finger-licking good. And then there's the ultimate cliché that every killer somehow has to be traumatized by a tyrannical mother during his child-years. Well this movie actually does something with that concept. I was grinning and shocked at the same time when that subplot unfolded on the screen.It all adds up to THE UNGODLY being one of the most pleasant theatrical surprises I've encountered in a long time. I'll try to temper my enthusiasm and keep myself from rating it a 10/10 yet. But to me THE UNGODLY already earned its place in my personal "Serial Killer Hall Of Fame". And now please let the godless keep on killing... It produces great cinema!