Blue Caprice (2013)

Dark and Stormy

Blue Caprice (2013) is a dark, moody film. A character study following descent into madness, it follows a disaffected pair of killers, who terrorized the Washington D.C.-area during the “Beltway Sniper Attacks,” which took 10 lives and wounded three more, in 2002 (the film’s name references the car they drove, and used as their sniper platform).

The pair were John Allen Muhammad (played by Isaiah Washington, who also serves as the film’s executive producer; Clockers, Out of Sight, TVs Grey’s Anatomy) and Lee Boyd Malvo (Tequan Richmond; a cinematic newcomer, known primarily for his work on television).

Muhammad meets the young Malvo on a Caribbean island, and takes the boy under his wing. Almost immediately, Muhammad sets about turning Malvo from an average teenager into a soldier he intends to loose in some imagined battle versus the forces in life he believes are aligned against him. He intends to teach the world a lesson for crossing him. “It would only take five bodies a day, for 30 days” he casually says, pushing a cart through a grocery story. Hungry for attention, and desperate for acceptance, Malvo proves a model student. He soon displays his mettle by killing a woman who testified against Muhammad, on her doorstep. From there, the pair embark on a cross-country killing and robbing spree, that culminates in D.C. shootings.

Washington’s Muhammad is frightening because, outwardly, he doesn’t appear threatening. When questioned by a police officer or store manager, he’s polite and obliging. He knows how to deal with authority without drawing attention to himself. It’s only in brief flashes (during a phone call, or firing a gun in a basement) where we recognize his temper knows no limits.

Malvo, on the other hand, is shown mostly as a dumb kid, blindly following where ever Muhammad leads him. How truthful this portrayal is, I have no way of knowing. But the film certainly places the lion’s share of blame for the crimes on the elder culprit.

What the film tries to depict (and is only marginally successful in showing) is how these men evolved from aimless, lower-middle-class loners into sociopathic murderers. Muhammad has child-custody problems with his estranged wife. Malvo’s mom is more concerned with her job than with parental guidance. But are these problems alone enough to push men to behave in such violent ways, unless they’re already teetering precariously on some dangerous line? Don’t countless people face similar problems (and worse) every day, without flying off half cocked and shooting everyone in sight? These explanations for the men’s pathology felt facile, and oversimplified.

What the film does get right is the ennui, poverty and suffocating aimlessness everywhere in the world these men occupy. The houses and cars are run down. They seem to have few options into which to funnel their rage. There aren’t any outlets which might assuage their steadily growing discontent. It’s no accident that the skies are always gray or rainy in Blue Caprice.

Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou, Syriana; director of the underrated

The Grey Zone and Eye of God) and Joey Lauren Adams (Chasing Amy, Dazed and Confused) are convincing as a pair of unsuspecting rubes, who unknowingly become enablers to the would-be killers up. Proving no good deed goes unpunished, they put the criminals up prior to the crimes’ start, thus unwittingly providing a headquarters for murderers’ nascent plans.

The movie’s first half is unusually slow. I know director Alexandre Moors (in his feature debut) is trying to develop character. It’s an interesting choice he makes to show very little about the crimes themselves, instead focusing on all the build up leading to them. In theory, this should create backstory, and help us understand Malvo and Muhammad better. However, what’s on screen (Muhammad alternating between speech making and showing Malvo how to wrestle, drive a car, fire a gun, etc…) is ponderously uneventful, and ultimately uninteresting.

The film has its merits, however. Audio of actual 911 calls is heartbreaking and terrifying, conveying the gravity and horror of the killings. The movie’s score is haunting, and the photography creates an eerie atmosphere. The conspicuous use of blue-gray color palette (and overall lack of bright colors throughout) mirrors the killers cold, calculating lack of empathy. That Malvo and Muhammad seem dangerous and unstable as they do owes as much to these specific cinematic elements, as anything.