Watch D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear For Free

Simply Perfect

Good movie but grossly overrated

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

At least this made-for-TV movie wasn't shot in Canada, although it might as well have been. It does the kind of job most TV movies do -- a straightforward, almost documentary, retelling of the incidents with enough fictional human interest scenes to turn it into something more than a search for Colonel Plum and his pepperbox revolver.I suppose most of us remember the killing spree around Washington, DC, in the early 90s. It was in the news every night. President Bush made a public comment on it. Two African-Americans drove around town in a Chevrolet with a hole cut through the trunk. The older man, played by Bobby Hosea, exerts some sort of charismatic spell over his younger disciple, Trent Cameron. Hosea drives the car, giving orders like "Clear your mind," while Cameron snuggles in the trunk and sights his Bushmaster rifle through the circular opening.It begins with a bang. Actually three or four bangs, discreetly done. No squibs explode. The victim looks surprised, stumbles a bit, and drops. Some victims we don't see at all.Both Hosea and Cameron are quite good, given the material they have to work with. Charles Dutton is the main figure, the police chief, built like a tank, speaking slowly, deliberately, emphatically to the TV cameras. He doesn't really bring much to the party. He gets to look exhausted and once or twice his eyes brim with tears. There is a sentimental coda that is supposed to make the audience sight with relief and gratitude. I'm afraid I dislike these tacked-on happy endings. It's like the beaten boxer, glimpsing his girl friend in the crowd, then hauling himself to his feet and clobbering his opponent to the canvas.Someone complained that the film didn't answer any important questions, such as, "Why did those two guys go around shooting people." I'm glad no answer was provided because at this stage of the game there is none to be had. The vast majority of homicides involve people who know one another. It's perfectly understandable because the victims are people who know us, whose opinions we care about, and who are in a position to hurt us. Killing a complete stranger has a preposterous quality. What's going on inside the heads of people like this, to whom shooting someone at random seems only a step or two beyond blasting a traffic sign on a rural road? Nobody knows. And the usual attempts at explanation -- abused as a child, traumatized by a war, grew up in a dysfunctional family -- are as ridiculous as the murders themselves.

Although we live further south now, at the time of the sniper, we lived in Frederick County, Maryland...Just to give ya an idea, it was 15 miles from where the sniper was caught, and around all the other shootings....The movie, I thought, captured everything just as it happened, and was not over-dramatized...There was real fear there, police escorts were available at shopping malls/centers 24/7,residents were warned to remain indoors/out of public as much as possible, and the highways really did back up miles and miles long looking for that elusive "white van" (initally suspected vehicle)..I think all of our guardian angels were working overtime that week...It could've been anybody, as the victims were picked at random, and the movie really got that message across flawlessly...Anyhoo, I just wanted to say that this, by far, depicts an actual event so correctly that I would (and plan to) buy it on DVD...That's my 2 cents LOL..:)Good job!P.S. - ::::A little prayer 4 the victim's families:::

The shocking case of the so-called "Beltway sniper" is dramatized in such a manner that you never really feel too connected to any of the main characters, but you do get a sense of the urgency for the investigators and the indescribable horror it must have been for the people in the area.In the case of 'Charles Moose' (Charles S. Dutton) I wish we could have gotten more under the skin of this very complex and fascinating chief of police. In real life, I remember watching him deliver all those press-conferences when it all happened, and how he gave an impression of being a very dedicated law-officer who truly lived up to the line "to protect and serve". Naturally I therefore hoped this film would give a better understanding of what makes this man tick, but it didn't really. This is no fault on Charles S. Dutton, a very fine actor, but more on the writers.On the other hand, the fact that we never get to know what makes the main characters act as they do, makes the portrayal of the two snipers even scarier. It's like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", the movie ends without us knowing what triggered all the bird attacks, and the fact that we don't get the answers we so desperately seek, add to the horror. Especially when the crimes in question are so horrific as they are here. Here we have two human-beings who really act like the world was their personal playground and the taking of human lives nothing worse than the actions in a video game. We will probably never get any real answer from the "lead" sniper John Allen Muhammad, as he was sentenced to death earlier this year, and considering the horror he bestowed upon America, it is not likely he will spend time on death row long enough to help give us an answer to the mystery.This movie dramatizes these perverse killings and it's grand-scale investigation in a straight-forward-manner that works, mostly thanks to the fact that this case is so dramatic to begin with that the film-makers really couldn't mess it up in the first place. As a matter of fact it is so harrowing that the movie itself leaves the viewer more disturbed than "entertained".Nice world we live in, huh?

I really enjoyed this moviE. USA did a good job in renacting this horrific crime that took the lives of several people. It just shows that there are still many sick people in this world, but a lot of good hearted people that will do just about anything to see that they are brought to justice.