Boston Strangler (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

Newspaper or investigative procedurals are a strange genre, one that often reaches award-winning heights. They tend to feature hot topics as well as A-list actors to portray the real people involved, and the most successful ones turn unlikely stories (due to the time or scope of the investigation or the dull background work involved) into riveting character studies or ideological manifestos. There are more examples than I could list here, but the new film about the Boston Strangler murders, which recently debuted on Hulu exclusively, belongs to an even stranger niche of this genre. Much like David Fincher's Zodiac, this picture tries to be a bit of a thriller and mystery while dramatizing the investigative journalism that made the case so infamous.

The only thing that writer/director Matt Ruskin really takes from Fincher's masterpiece (yeah, I went there) is his subdued color palette and brooding tone. Operating mostly without direct threat from the killer, the protagonists here function less as potential victims and more as journalistic heroes, which is lovely even as it removes most of the tension inherent in Ruskin's approach to the material. As a tribute to Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole, the Boston women who broke news of the serial killer in the 1960s, the film succeeds, giving names and actions to the real-life people more than the mysterious but more widely recognizable criminal or criminals.

McLaughlin is played, most notably, by Keira Knightley, whose accent work is great if a little distracting. She's a Lifestyle writer at the Boston Record American and a wife and mother at home. After learning about three older women (not necessarily the usual demographic) who were recently raped and murdered in similar fashion -- strangled with underwear decoratively knotted -- she and her colleague Cole (Carrie Coon, who performs admirably in a role that feels undercooked and/or butchered by edits) pursue the connection in order to warn other women in Boston. Their efforts are hampered, of course, by sexism in their workplace as well as domestically; other departments don't want to collaborate with these women who are in way over their heads -- not to mention that different precincts are botching their own investigations and are unwilling to share valuable details with each other, much less with reporters -- while Loretta's family life suffers (her husband is played by Morgan Spector, who really should have had more to do in the screenplay if this was meant to be a significant part of the film).

Perhaps the most interesting development in this film, for me, was the moments in which the killer is all but forgotten. It's not until after McLaughlin and Cole lambast the Boston police in the paper for negligence that they start getting creepy calls from threatening men. Loretta even sees a figure stalking her family. Is it the killer harassing them, or is it the "good men" they've pissed off? These women are apparently the only ones who really care about getting word out, and their place in a male-dominated world is increasingly hazardous. Thankfully, the film doesn't fully tilt into thriller territory, but rather (like Dark Waters) lets the potential for these threats dissipate as quickly as they materialized. It's far more important to Ruskin (as writer) that our heroes are resilient, determined, and thorough in their work, pursuing leads through multiple dead ends and roadblocks.

Ruskin's mishandled direction, though, doesn't stop with his piggybacked color palette or languid pace. He uses a somber score that feels shoehorned into the wrong film and lets it overwhelm sensitive moments. His visuals are repetitive and dolorous, uninspired and drab in ways serial police procedurals on television long ago overcame. Then there are the handful of actual murder scenes, which are filmed more like Dateline reenactments than like part of the actual movie in which they've been inserted. Similarly, and while the two leading women are directed well, virtually none of the men are: David Dastmalchian is as creepy as ever as a suspect, Chris Cooper is laughably cliché as the stubborn boss, and Bill Camp never gets much to chew on. Alessandro Nivola is arguably the most interesting character, as a weary cop who eventually helps the women in their investigation. If Ruskin could have committed to dramatizing the personal cost of McLaughlin and Cole's lengthy investigation, or even relaying the riveting case as a mystery/thriller that has never been satisfyingly resolved, that could have been a great movie. As it is, it's entertaining and interesting, if only for a modest diversion.