Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)

True Crime is not a genre I often appreciate. There is a voyeuristic, exploitative element to it that I find hard to overcome. There needs to be a reason to tell stories about real people's deaths and their suffering and that reason has to be compelling enough to justify the risk of glamorizing both the killer and the crimes. In my opinion most True Crime doesn't manage this feat. I don't feel Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile manages it either.

Extremely Wicked has trouble finding it's focus. It attempts to be a number of different movies at once and never quite manages to be any. First it focuses less on the crimes and more on the legal proceedings. It follows infamous killer Ted Bundy as he is arrested for the first time and through his journey through the legal system. This choice opened the door for what could have been a fairly fascinating look at criminal justice and how it works (in this case it mostly worked) yet the film doesn't spend much time on the legal aspects and more on the trials as we expect them on TV shows. 

The film also looks at Bundy as pseudo-celebrity. Yet even with this the film doesn't get into a deep analysis of the way we romanticize celebrity criminals. Instead it just scrapes the surface never getting underneath the whys or hows and all the difficult questions that go along with it.

The choice to cast Zac Efron emphasizes this. His image as sex symbol focuses us on that path. And while many critics praise his performance I found it rather basic. It's certainly not bad but I don't feel be brought anything complicated to the role. The film follows his "adventures" escaping, filling the story with charming moments and entertaining if sometimes comic anecdotes. All making Bundy charming and attractive with little deconstruction of these emotions and reaction. The film plays into them.

Another approach the film tries but never quite delivers on is centering Bundy's girlfriend played by Lily Collins. There was a choice made to tell the story (partly) through her eyes. It is therefore the story of a woman who is taken in by him and struggles with her love for him and the revealing truth as she drowns in it. This could have been an interesting movie too but the film doesn't give enough of it's time to it. Sometimes I felt like I wished the film had chosen between its foci but it keeps moving in different directions doing neither very well. The film introduces elements of different ways to tell the story and then doesn't fully follow through on any of them.

I did appreciate the film didn't focus on his crimes. We aren't subjected to reproductions of his murders and that I felt was a good choice. There are times when the film does have people speak of the crimes and this is probably important. We need to remember how evil Bundy truly was. But we don't have to watch that evil happen. Especially since it really did happen. However even this part is problematic. The film never makes us see Efron as truly evil. There is a disconnect between him and the crimes that the film never addresses.

Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile does not fail completely it just never truly succeeded for me in making me care about any of it. Mostly this is due to the way the film never truly commits to what sort of story it wants to tell and therefore never quite tells one fully realized tale.

Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile
Starring: Zac Efron, Lily Collins, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Dylan Baker, Jim Parsons, Haley Joel Osment
Director: Joe Berlinger
Writer: Michael Werwie