The Capture of the Green River Killer (2008)

Too much of everything

Best movie ever!

Am I Missing Something?

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Did they actually do any research? Like, AT ALL? The Sea Tac Strip has NEVER been like that...they played it like Sunset Strip. It's NEVER been that busy, and shops DEFINITELY do not display merch out on the sidewalk like that. IT RAINS HERE! The body with the fish displayed? Wrong kind of fish. The pregnant woman's body found with the Space Needle in the background? You can't see the Space Needle from ANY of the body locations. Even from the Aurora end of the Strip, the Needle would look TINY. SO much bad I can't even get through it!

This film is not like most serial killer stories, in that it examines the lives of the young girls, tragic victims in the wrong place at the wrong time, born into the wrong social class with little choices Amy Davidson as victim Helen "Hel" Remus is particularly tragic and notable; a discarded child really, her mother Opal (Sharon Lawrence) is an impoverished waitress living in a trailer park, drinking, and attaching to any man who will be her meal ticket for a day.Tom Cavanagh is good as local Detective Reichert, who persists on the Green River Killer case despite the foibles and arrogance of the FBI.The actor portraying Gary Ridgeway is effectively sleazy and odious, he looks like any gas station attendant a young girl may hitch a ride from: that's the truly frightening aspect. Most serial killers blend in the scenery, hold steady jobs, and many are never caught.Indeed the Green River Killer was free for over a decade and his tally of victims has never been clearly established.Overall the film is not perfect in that some of the deeper psychological issues leading to these tragedies could have been explored, for instance what leads young girls to a transient life in the first place, and why is society failing here?.Worth watching as it is respectful of the young and tragic victims of these senseless and random homicides. 8/10.

This '' chronicle'' of the capture of the green river killer is a story of Dave Reichart the cop who couldn't catch him . Given all the latest tools police technology had to offer and a lot of manpower he was unable to find the perpetrator .Hey , it happens . It tore Reichart apart for sure he was and apparently is tormented by this incident but it was hardly his fault . The person who caught Gary Ridgeway was the unknown DNA perfector and the crime scene tech .Ridgeway was interviewed several times some by Reichart personally , the searched his house twice and his work area and nothing . Reichart's obsession with this case is in my opinion his inability to accept the fact that he couldn't catch Ridgeway straight up .A post arrest interview between Reichart and Ridgeway spoke volumes /Reichart tried to intimidate and bully Ridgeway , his hostility and feelings of ineptitude were very evident as well as his guilt . Reichart it wasn't your responsibility even though you see it that way , its your job to do your best , thats it .Part of being a man is accepting when your best effort didn't produce a desired result .I believe his motives were genuine , but his ego doesn't allow him to move on .If you have difficulty think of all the innocent men you hounded on this case and were proved wrong , how you invaded their lives and privacy , feel bad about them instead of yourself.You must reconcile that with the fact you did your best , put extra-ordinary time and effort into this , sacrificed time with your family as well So don't waste any more time on the sicko . Your just a man who came up short on this occasion, move on .This film didn't effectively document this story in my opinion .

The so-called Green River killer was responsible for more than three dozen deaths of women, mostly prostitutes, in the Seattle/Tacoma area of Washington state. This lengthy, slow, dark film isn't really his story. It follows the career of Dave Reichert (Thomas Cavanaugh), the head of the Green River task force at the King's County Sheriff's Office, with some additional time given over to the trials and tribulations of one of the killer's victims, Helen Remus (Amy Davidson).It's not much more than a routine rendering of what has by now become a familiar narrative -- the mounting toll of bodies, the frustrated police, the dead ends, the pressure from the press, and finally the cathartic payoff."The Deliberate Stranger", the TV movie about Ted Bundy, for all its flaws, was a more tightly wound and better scripted tale, focusing as it did on the ensemble of cops, on the one hand, and Bundy's peregrinations on the other. The insertion of Bundy's affair with one or another woman was an informative diversion. Here, Helen Remus provides the narration, speaking from beyond the grave, in a warehouse filled with the GRK's other victims standing in a silent tableau. Her maunderings cover a lot of philosophy, with God dragged in by the heels, mostly centering around free will versus fate. (She quotes from William Henley's "Invictus" -- "I am the captain of my fate./ I am the master of my soul.") It all sounds like so much padding, although everyone is entitled to his or her philosophy about life, whether elegant or folksy. Heck, it's REQUIRED that we have one, even if we have to bootleg it in by the back door. It does get tiresome, though, and predictable. She was basically a good-hearted girl who came from a dysfunctional family and all the rest of it. If she weren't a hooker, she might have been a nun. That kind of portrayal of the victim as abused but still brave and generous, cheapens the narrative. She was murdered and her body dumped. Would it have been less a crime if she'd been shown as the cynical, self-indulgent hooker she might well have been? But that's just part of the problem with this film. There is no wit in the meandering script, no sparkle. And what passion it tries to evoke is undercut by the weak acting. Thomas Cavanaugh looks the part of the chief detective, but he has only a tentative hold on his instrument. His explosion of anger at the end of his interrogation of the captive killer looks like that of an actor trying to act out an explosion of anger, and his tender scenes aren't much better. I don't mean this as a slur on Thomas Cavanaugh the man. He probably has a loving family and a nice dog. It's just that, as a performer, he has a way to go.There are a couple of nice shots of rivers flowing through dismal gray rocks, stirring and foaming, suggestive of peace and nature and submerged corpses. Now THAT makes one wax philosophical. It would have been nice, finally, if it had had a faster pace and if it had had a few more scenes that were brightly lighted. Even the sheriff's offices are filmed with only a few scattered lights. The lighting isn't stylish or dramatic. It's just too low. Where did this noirish nonsense come from -- "The X Files"?