Blue Caprice 2013

     The setting of this film is the Beltway Highway on the East Coast in 2002.  An abandoned boy is brought to America and he is drawn into the shadow of a dangerous father figure.  They were the two people involved in the Beltway sniper attacks.  Ten people were killed and three people were wounded in the Washington, D.C. area and parts of Virginia.  They were described as mass murderers but their sustained, long-term viciousness marked them as serial killers.  The shooters left Tarot cards at certain crime scenes with messages.  Some had the message, “For you Mr. Police” and “Code: ‘Call me God’” and “Do not release to the press.”  For a long time, authorities and the media assumed they were looking for one person as the killer.  It was also thought he was a white man?  These misconceptions were not cleared up until after John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested.
     Muhammad and Malvo met in Antigua and Lee became a surrogate son to Muhammad because his mother left him.  John Allen was obsessed with killing his estranged wife Mildred.  She had a restraining order against him and he couldn’t see their three children.  At one time, he too the children to Antigua without Mildred’s permission and she was the custodial parent.  Supposedly, the real motive for the shootings was to provide an elaborate cover for murdering Mildred?  Initially Malvo took credit for being the trigger man in every killing.  But, he was protecting Muhammad.  He thought he would not be put to death as a minor but it was possible Muhammad would get the death penalty?  Muhammad also had Matrix style fantasies of humankind toiling under the yoke of an evil machine with overlords.  He had vague future plans to kill a policeman, bomb more police at a victim’s funeral, extort money from the U.S. Government and train other fatherless boys to fight The System.  I had seen this film before but I didn’t remember very much about it?  I do remember the headlines in the newspapers and the fear by the public of being killed randomly.  3 1/2* (I liked this movie)

93 min, Bio directed by Alexandre Moors and written by R.F.I. Porto and Alexandre Moors with Tequan Richmond, April Yvette Thompson, Isaiah Washington, Abner Exposito, Raul and Laura Aquino, Cassandra Freeman, J.W. Cortes, Maul Donte Davis, Nick Soviecke, Margaret Horning.

Note:  Imdb 6 out of 10 with 5,326 views, Rotten Tomatoes 83% with 83 critics 51% audience with 7,248 ratings, Roger Ebert 2 1/2* Matt Zoller Seitz, RollingStone 3 1/2* Peter Travers, Metacritic 76 out of 100 with 25 critics (positive 20, mixed 5, negative 0), 6.9 out of 10 (positive 21, mixed 6, negative 2), Slant Magazine 3 1/2* out of 4* Thomas Hachard, Amazon 3.2* of 5*.

Special Note:  There is a mistake when Lee is walking towards the Army recruiter.  A Lexus RX SUV is seen but the film takes place in 2001 and this model was not produced before 2003.  This Caprice model sometimes had and then sometimes didn’t have a wheel cover on the front left wheel?  When the Caprice is driving towards Washington DC, it has a different license plate number than during the rest of the film?  The Caprice was modified by Muhammad to have a cutout in the backseat for a rifle barrel to be inserted through the opening.  It was large enough for the shooter to see the intended victims.