Citizen X (DVD)

Writing this review because of news there's a new 2015 movie about the real-life terror that was serial killer Andrei Chikatilo.It'll make an interesting comparison to the powerful 1995 version which was based on the detailed accounting of events by journalist Robert Cullen in his book "The Killer Department". Notable because, although his work reads like the fantasist creation of a crime writer, he was in fact a Russian station reporter for various western publications.This film is not the commonplace exploitative horror flick with contrived shock value attempting to score titillation points with fans of the genre. Nor did it reveal some fresh human sickness that one immediately wishes they could forget. No great fight scenes or gunplay, no stylish Hannibal Lecter manipulating from behind a plexiglass cage, no one being surgically carved apart. There was just the plodding investigative work and the indomitable will of one man to see that justice found its quarry.Tells the true story of a monstrous predator and the relentless police officer who refused to allow blundering bureaucratic morons to deter him from saving the lives of young women and children; despite experiencing these events in the Soviet Union - which was the very definition of pedantic idiocy.In 1983 a forensic medical examiner was promoted to the Rostov Oblast, a far-west federated Russian district that borders Ukraine. His new position is due to the previous job holder's retirement. Ominously, on his first day of work he already has a dead body waiting for him, that of a young girl who was clearly butchered. While he's disturbed, it is after all his first day. And after spending it acquainting himself with the slipshod incompetence of his predecessor, he wants to go home and get some rest.Then the remains of five more murdered children were brought in.It will be the very last time Lieutenant Viktor Burakov experiences a normal day for the next 8 years.Correctly surmising that they are dealing with a serial killer - he had no way of knowing what the response to his investigations would be; nor could he have predicted that his greatest adversary wouldn't be the murderer, but obtuse political deflection and denial.It's his burden to find the monster while saddled with the so-called Killer Department, an oversight committee made up of his superior, civil bureaucrats, and the embodiment of a communist icehole - the party's political officer. This group gets to play Monday Morning Quarterback with perfect 20/20 Hindsight, constantly hamstringing Burakov's every step while demanding answers that they themselves do not want.Years passed and the body count grew.Efforts to bring in more officers, a budget to include a western computer, and most importantly a call to the head of the United States FBI Behavioral Science Unit for insight and advice to help capture the perpetrator is regularly and repeatedly denied. In fact, he is scolded with the stunningly ignorant pronouncement that, "There are no serial killers in the Soviet Union." That, "Only the decadent West could produce such perverted criminality."He is further frustrated when forced to waste limited resources chasing down and eliminating a bizarre swath of red herrings - from a non-existent gang of mentally retarded escapees to an imagined satanic cult; even culling innocent homosexuals because they were considered sexual deviants, their lives destroyed for the "social good".After working years without a single break, he's physically and emotionally shattered. Suffering a nervous breakdown and unable to function, Burakov is sent to convalesce in hospital. Fearing the loss of his job, his family punished through no fault of their own, he awaits the bad news.But far from the Oblast, global events are unfolding. Events that will change the course of human history and alter the direction of the case.It is now the winter of 1991 - The End Of The Soviet Union is at hand.Personal Note:- The unimaginable amount of bleep that Police Major Viktor Burakov went through was both heartbreaking and inspiring.Seriously, whenever contemplating the utter insanity of working and dealing with idiocy in my own life, I think to Burakov. What he endured; the silent suffering without complaint. Suddenly, my burden isn't as heavy.Movie Note:- What made this production so engrossing were co-leads, Stephen Rea as Burakov and Jeffrey DeMunn as the unrepentant serial murderer. Infusing incredible depth to their portrayals, these two actors captured the truest essence of their characters - giving us performances that were just incredible. A genuine testament to the art of acting.Really shocking to learn that neither Rea or DeMunn were nominated for an acting award. In fact, it was fellow performer Donald Sutherland, as Colonel Mikhail Fetisov, that garnered the praise of both critics and award groups.Don't get me wrong, I happen to love Sutherland. And his work here was good. Not exceptional, but good. Which, in my eyes, makes more damnable the artistic crime that the two co-leads weren't properly recognized for their stunning effort on this project.

HBO had a few crazy good movies with A listers in the 90s and early 2000s. This is one and the performances are absolutely masterful. And it's based on a true story too... They still have no idea how many victems there actually were and it was very very likely crazy higher.This one is second IMO for these HBO movies only to Conspiracy which has an insane amount of A listers in it as well as shot in widescreen with better cameras so it upscales better and is just way more chilling of a movie. If you like that one get this one for sure or vice versa.

In the East, behind an Iron Curtain carved by the image of Stalin and the words "The Cold War" as they crept into the 80's, no Western diseases exist. There is no want or wantonness, no greed that exists under the curvature of a dollar-shaped crescent, and there certainly is nothing like the violence we - westerners - shape skulking the streets. That's what the people in charge have to say, anyhow, and that's the end-all to the debate. The problem is that everyone didn't get the memo and one man, an Andrei Chikatilo, finds himself basically left alone with his wanton needs and no one to acknowledge their existence. This goes on for eight-years, too, and the amount of people left in the wake of one nation's ignorance - it's amazingly horrific and then some.When this originally aired on HBO, I was surprised at how apt the story was told. Many people had heard about the thing that had happened behind the façade of Communism at the time, and many people had seen little snippets of what type of person was behind these crimes. But the things the movie revealed - they were chilling to see when played out on television and then some. Perhaps it was a number of things that added to this as well, highlighting not only the criminal himself but also the things that he had done. The removal of body parts with teeth, the way he stalked people and lured them in with shallow promises; it was terrifyingly surreal and yet it wasn't. Perhaps that's the part that was the most stunning of all; this wasn't based on a novel or on a fantasy. It was a tale about someone that really existed and really killed in ways far-more-graphic than even the scenes could attest to.With regard to the movie, I personally thought that the acting in the movie was superb and that the background was beautifully rendered. The movie didn't overdo what it was like to live in the Soviet Union and it didn't try to delve too deeply into the political intrigue that surrounded that moment in time. It looked into the moment instead with a curious "why," picking at the things that were relevant to the movie, and highlighted those.This made the movie even more frightening in that right, because people kept disappearing and bodies kept piling up and yet - and yet "nothing like that could happen."If you want to see a movie about serial killers that reminds me of a cross between a docudrama and a somewhat terrifying glimpse into the past, this would be worth checking out. I was surprised by the detail put into it, the relevance that existed within the framework of the move, and the type of things that really can happen when people pretend that awful things don't occur.It was well worth the watch.