‘No Man of God’: Film Review

The calm, measured tones of Luke Kirby’s voice as Ted Bundy are first heard in No Man of God on a recording of one in all many interviews performed by FBI agent Invoice Hagmaier within the early days of the Bureau’s profiling unit, established to unlock the psychology of serial murderers and rapists. At that time, the convicted killer had not but acknowledged the felony methodology he describes as his personal. What makes his detailed account of concentrating on a sufferer and finding out her routines so disturbing, nonetheless, is director Amber Sealey’s option to accompany Bundy’s phrases with cheerful house films of random younger ladies and youngsters, oblivious to any lurking menace.

In a film that’s mainly about two males sitting on reverse sides of a desk in a jail interrogation room discussing essentially the most horrific premeditated crimes, the concern triggered in ladies is an efficient motif. It registers within the glints of a disturbed look or in eyes huge open in shock — on the faces of a jail warden’s workplace assistant, a tv manufacturing crew member or a motorist who pulls up alongside Hagmaier’s automotive at a site visitors gentle and overhears a part of a Bundy recording.

It’s additionally etched into the options of Carolyn Lieberman (Aleksa Palladino), a fictionalized model of the lawyer who represented Bundy in his remaining appeals, not as a result of she believed in his innocence however as a result of she was against capital punishment.

Written by C. Robert Cargill (Physician Unusual) underneath the pseudonym Package Lesser, and impressed by interview transcripts, recordings and Hagmaier’s recollections, the movie opens with a newscaster saying the 1989 execution of Bundy in Florida State Jail, following 10 years of exhaustive Demise Row appeals.

The principle motion, nonetheless, jumps again 4 years earlier, when the Ronald Reagan administration had established the Nationwide Middle for the Evaluation of Violent Crime. Particular Agent Hagmaier (Elijah Wooden) was one of many first 5 FBI profilers to work full-time within the unit and the one one who volunteered to tackle the case of Bundy, who was identified for his hatred of the Feds and his refusal to talk. Hagmaier, a non secular household man who begins daily in prayer, agrees to go over the Bundy information however requests that his boss, Roger Depue (Robert Patrick), withhold the crime-scene images.

With sinuous edits incorporating some pretty dissolves, gradual monitoring pictures gliding down the jail corridors and wonderful use of a disquieting string and digital rating by Clarice Jensen, director Sealey confidently units the wheels in movement for a psychological thriller by which the wily Bundy will trigger Hagmaier to query the character of man and what separates him from the unrepentant killer, rapist and necrophiliac sitting throughout from him.

What makes the efficiency of Kirby (finest referred to as Lenny Bruce on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) so transfixing is that he retains the viewer questioning — virtually to the tip — whether or not Bundy is manipulating Hagmaier or sincerely values him as a good friend after their years of normal interviews. He tends to lookup at his interlocutor from beneath creased brows, in methods that may be learn as inquisitive, evasive or cocky. There’s actual subtlety and management within the diploma to which vulnerability and concern creep into his characterization towards the tip, because the appeals course of hits a wall and the inevitable finish attracts nearer. What’s maybe extra shocking are the hints of betrayal that play throughout Ted’s face as Invoice challenges his self-deception by reminding him that the folks calling for his execution are the truth is very totally different from him.

These folks — an ever-present gladiatorial mob of protesters outdoors the jail gates waving indicators that learn “Buckle Up, Bundy” or “Have a Seat, Ted,” and hawking T-shirts emblazoned with “Burn, Bundy, Burn!” — present meals for up to date contextualization that the screenplay disappointingly leaves unexplored.

The phenomenon of the serial assassin that after occupied important area at midnight recesses of the American psyche has since been largely changed by the virtually weekly incidence of the mass capturing. Army grade weapons now imply {that a} disturbed sociopath doesn’t have to spend months or years racking up double-digit kills. Comparable numbers of lives could be taken within the area of an hour. And but, folks from the identical demographic screaming for Bundy to get the electrical chair now largely appear to shrug on the dying toll each time the sticky topic of gun legal guidelines comes up.

Whereas Kirby’s efficiency is the mesmerizing heart of the movie, Wooden matches him by way of depth. He conveys Invoice’s integrity as he urges Bundy to cease stalling, to admit as a way to deliver peace to his sufferer’s households and to precise regret. There’s additionally pathos in Hagmaier’s failure to have the ability to be there for Bundy in his remaining moments, because of the facility play of the jail warden (W. Earl Brown), who’s weary of the Bundy media circus, and churlishly resentful of Invoice’s distinctive capacity to speak with the killer and acquire his belief. Invoice’s anger on the bait-and-switch of a televangelist (Christian Clemenson) shines additional gentle on the Federal agent’s basic decency.

Wooden additionally serves as a producer, and the one disadvantage together with his work right here — which I’ll admit could be a purely private response — is that like so many actors indelibly related to one explicit function, it’s not at all times straightforward to simply accept Frodo Baggins as an formidable FBI agent with a pointy analytical thoughts and a posh ethical conscience who would go on to go the unit. Wooden’s face has an inherent innocence that to some extent works towards his casting right here, although his efficiency is in any other case persuasive. It’s not the actor’s fault if he hasn’t aged, and nonetheless appears like the highschool nerd in The College.

Reservations apart, this stays an engrossing drama, focusing not on the ugly particulars of the 30 or extra murders of younger ladies and youngsters dedicated by Bundy however on his mind-set throughout these remaining years when his life was in limbo. Within the well reduce sequence of interrogation scenes with varied states’ investigators close to the tip, editor Patrick Nelson Barnes emphasizes the disturbing fact that even on the time, the names of the victims tended to be forgotten, whereas that of the person who murdered and defiled them lives on.

Does it add main insights to the canon of movies already on the market — most lately the Zac Efron automobile Extraordinarily Depraved, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and the Netflix documentary sequence Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, each directed by Joe Berlinger — coping with this determine who continues to loom giant within the annals of American true-crime infamy greater than three many years after his dying? That’s debatable. However both approach, it’s a chilling psychological inquiry that holds your consideration for the length.