Surprisingly bad.

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2017)

Make no mistake- this is a story that should be told, and retold, and told again. But Alan Parker dropped a major ball on this one.
How could the combo of Parker, Gene Hackman, Frances McDormand etc fail so badly? I had to keep reminding myself- "this is the man who made 'Midnight Express'". It was easy to forget in the bad writing, the ham-handed smashing-together of facts, the cartoonish depictions.
Something like this should never be fictionalized, because it could easily be written off as sensationalism. But o, how real it was. ANd how poorly it was rendered in a master's hands. Everyone's performances were not up to par, though Gene Hackman pretty much owns it as usual. Willem Dafoe was strangely incompetent. Frances McDormand's bad accent (as a southerner I really take umbrage at poor southern accents) left much to be desired.
Everyone was drawn in (forgive the pun) black and white, and it just all felt so sophomoric. I feel like the heavy subject matter blinds people to its poor craftsmanship. I would like to see these events depicted again, but properly, and with all the facts. Because the truth was far uglier than this fictionalized brew could impart.