Boston Strangler Review: Lack of Energy Makes Hulu Film More of a Sleeper Hold

There are two different kinds of "not bad." There's the "not bad" when someone hands you a signature cocktail, you take a sip, and you raise your eyebrows and say, "Heeeeeeeeey, not bad!" And then there's the "not bad" that implies that, were you keep speaking, you'd follow up with "not good, either."

Alas, it is the latter "not bad" that comes to mind when reflecting on Boston Strangler, one of the more high profile feature films to debut on Hulu. (It comes from Ridley Scott's production company and 20th Century Studios, suggesting that in an alternate timeline in which Disney did not gobble up 20th Century Fox, this would have been a theatrical release.) 

Writer-director Matt Ruskin, whose previous work includes the based-on-a-true-story wrongfully accused drama Crown Heights, has assembled a good cast and conceived of a great angle with which to tell this story. But then he just lets the thing sit there. As a police mystery, it's not unwatchable — seven hundred thousand seasons of Law and Order: SVU attest to the viability of the form. It's just an extreme case of "nothing new."

6.0

Boston Strangler

at Hulu

Like

• Carrie Coon's performance sparks
• The focus on women in the workplace is a necessary update

Dislike

• The movie lacks energy
• Comparisons to similar investigative films don't do it any favors

This take on the actual killings that terrorized the Boston area from 1962 to 1964 actually isn't from the police's point of view; we're with a real-life journalist who becomes increasingly obsessed with the case. Keira Knightley plays Loretta McLaughlin, a reporter at an also-ran paper (the Boston Record-American). She's ahead of her time, a woman balancing a husband and two children, and eager to do more with her career than run toaster reviews for the lifestyle section. She's first to suspect that random-seeming killings of older women might actually be connected. When she finally convinces her editor (Chris Cooper) to let her follow the story, she is teamed with the more seasoned Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), and they begin making serious progress.

They are the first to give the violent New England nut the name "Boston Strangler," and they are also first to publish that the police basically have their heads up their rears on this investigation. The primary problem is how different departments with varying jurisdictions refuse to communicate with one another. Ruskin paints some frustrating pictures of the gender divide, with male machismo steamrolling the women and dismissing their claims. More than a few scenes anger up the blood, just like they are supposed to.

That's the good stuff. The bad stuff is that there is a life-threatening lack of oomph in the picture. Carrie Coon is the only spark, as the seen-it-all tough gal reporter with a "screw you" attitude. But considering getting to know her beyond the surface is an impossibility baked into her character, it's a dead end. Knightley is fine as the frustrated and increasingly threatened journalist, but there isn't too much in the way of drama in her arc. She's stuck in a lot of bland scenes of Loretta in rooms with people, talking. 

There is one sequence in particular, which surely meant a lot in Ruskin's head. Knightley's character is meeting with loved ones of the deceased, and we get to know a bit about them as individuals. It reminds us that these are people, not statistics, and also casts a light on the under-discussed threats women faced (and face), like being gaslit by ex-boyfriends and having their worries ignored by others. But the dialogue is flat, the performances are monotone, and, visually, the picture is awash in dull, gray-blue metallic sheen that is fundamentally unappealing. 

The twist of the knife comes when Knightley's in-too-deep reporting echoes that of Jake Gyllenhaal's character in the far superior Zodiac. One scene basically demands a comparison, and Boston Strangler ends up gasping for air. 

In 1968, when the terror of these killings was still quite fresh, Richard Fleischer directed The Boston Strangler, starring Henry Fonda, Tony Curtis, George Kennedy, William Marshall, and a lot of other dudes. (Sally Kellerman gets a line or two, after she is assaulted.) It's a fascinating counterpoint to this movie in just how much women are ignored as anything other than victims. It even opens with a scene with a male reporter.

Fonda plays the real-life special investigator John Bottomly. In the film he is the hero who gets his man, but in a caring and noble way. Bottomly is also credited as a technical advisor.

In the new film (and in the real investigation, as some cursory internet research has confirmed) Bottomly was, in fact, a bit of a klutz who seriously botched things up. This makes Boston Strangler an essential response to that earlier work. However, as a movie — as "entertainment" — Fleischer's The Boston Strangler grabs Ruskin's by the throat and doesn't let go. Its characters leap off the screen, the dialogue (though over 50 years old!) is fresh, there is humanity in the tragedy, there's no shortage of gallows humor, and its frequent use of split-screen is visually striking.

What this means is somewhere out there is another Boston Strangler movie that'll get this all right. 

Premieres: Friday, March 17 on Hulu
Who's in it: Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Chris Cooper, Alessandro Nivola
Who's behind it: Matt Ruskin (writer-director)
For fans of: True crime cases, women fighting workplace misogyny, Carrie Coon