This is probably my favorite movie that not too many people have seen. I believe it was made for cable tv. Regardless of its provenance, it is a fantastic film. It also holds the distinction of being the only movie I love that everyone I refer to it, likes also. Pretty high praise given my dubious taste!
The movie details the decade long search for the Soviet Union's most notorious prolific serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo.
It is in essence, a detective story. It is also a study in Jobian patience. It is also a buddy movie. The fact that it is centered around a serial killer is almost irrelevant.
The plot revolves around a new pathologist (Stephen Rea) who learns shortly into his tenure that there is a serial killer in the area. He is a very quiet, serious sort who wants to dive in and solve the case. His job is quickly complicated by the Soviet machine and its bureaucracy and ideology. His boss, played by Donald Sutherland, is more of a hindrance than help (so he thinks), and the two go back and forth as more bodies, mostly children, pile up. There are deeper levels of politics involved, but the story revolves around their different ways of navigating the system. Slowly, a friendship evolves under the most dire of circumstances.
Eventually the duo do make headway, particularly when they elicit the aid of a psychiatrist, brilliantly portrayed by Max Von Sydow. He has the greatest job in the film, notably commenting on the nature of the two men and their relationship. This is capped off towards the end of the film when he looks at Rea and Sutherland and says "together you make a fine human being."
They eventually solve the case, and each man learns from the other. It is a good lesson for those of us embroiled in our own red tape quagmires. Patience, politics, picking your battles, slow burning passion, and a begrudging friendship make for a slow-moving, delicious character study - and, oh yeah, there are 50 plus murders. The violence is graphic, perhaps necessary for us to understand the underlying implosion of the lead detective and the eventual risks his boss undertakes. It is very close to a perfect movie.
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