Blue Caprice

In many ways Blue Caprice is the inverse of another excellent independent picture from this year, Fruitvale Station. Whereas that film presented a detailed picture of a real life act of senseless violence by simply illustrating the events that lead up to the death of the victim, Blue Caprice examines the lives of the perpetrators of real life atrocities in much the same way. Director Alexandre Moors' restrained but poetic visual style and straightforward screenplay avoids making excuses for these killers or martyring them on the altar of some grand ideological thesis. The film simply shows us what is known about the two killers and the rather unextraordinary circumstances that lead up to their crimes.

The two lead performances are striking. Isaiah Washington plays John Muhammad, a dangerous man estranged from his children and angry at the world. Tequan Richmond plays Lee Malvo, a boy from Antigua who is lured to America by Muhammad, who becomes a kind of twisted surrogate father to him. Washington's rants and speeches are effectively scary, but the blank expression on Richmond 's face is all the more chilling in light of where we know this story is headed. In fact both actors are at their best when they're not speaking, and Moors' camera just lingers on them, inviting us to wonder what is going on in their heads. This is not a picture that offers any catharsis or insight into how to prevent this kind of madness from occurring; rather it is a detailed study of the mental decline of one human being and the corruption of another’s soul.