A career defining performance, and a story worth paying attention to

Rating: 9/10 (26 March 2006)

No doubt this movie would have been nothing...a snooze...a drag...if it weren't for the ridiculously entertaining and gripping performance by Phillip Seymor Hoffman. Who else could have done it? I don't know...but the fact is that performance was there...so we have a movie not only worth seeing...but actually damn good. The story inside the story is of course that of Capote's book "In Cold Blood." This is not a film version of that book, but rather a behind the scenes look of what it takes to write a "Non-fiction Novel" that involves two convicted murderers. Clifton Collins adds a strong supporting role as Perry Smith and Catherine Keener is solid as usual as Harper Lee. But the film is called Capote...and it is Phillip Seymor Hoffman who gives you your 8 dollars worth. Easily the best performance of the year...and probably so far this millennium! It will be hard if not impossible for him to top it...but he's got the Oscar and he deserved it...the film as a whole... a bit slow...it is a partial biography of a writer after all...but knowing that coming in I was very pleased...the film stayed focused on Capote's work for the book...not unimportant details of his personal life...and for that...it gets an A