Merolliv
I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.
AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Bluebell Alcock
Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
sergelamarche
Pas trop mauvais. Bonne re-création de l'histoire de l'enlèvement du bébé de Lindberg et de faire payer un innocent pour le crime. Le crime du siècle est en fait l'histoire du mec qu'on voulait coupable. Les vrais coupables ne sont pas inquiétés, évidemment. On est aux États-Unis!
ShelbyTMItchell
Whether you believe in Bruno Richard Hauptmann's innocence or guilt. As pros are that he says that his wife, Anna was with him the March 1st when the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped and body found in a ditch by a truck driver. Or that like one reviewer says that he was out of work and begin to spend a lot on expensive things and even sent his wife to Germany as he was a petty criminal after serving in WWI stealing stuff and being in prison for robbery. He illegally came to the USA, when the third time was a charm as he was caught two other times. As those are the consBut really trying to portray the kidnapper and murderer of the baby, as he had a child of his own, a boy with Anna. In a sympathetic light. Really what where the movie producers and director thinking?As police corruption and that of beating suspects like Hauptmann and that of feeling pressured by the public to find someone, anybody. Even though I admit that I did not feel bad for Hauptmann, as IMHO he did it with the money and had possibly had an accomplice but that person was not arrested. But still, you feel bad for his wife turned widow Anna and she was so loyal to him to the end. She died in 1994 proclaiming her husband was railroaded to the electric chair in 1936.But Liberal Hollywood wants to make a sympathetic portrayal of a murderer. Really?! What about the victim?
ian
Be very careful about accepting anything this film tells you. It's based on Ludovic Kennedy's book which is equally untrustworthy. The accusations against the police and state troopers made me really angry.One of the most blatant distortions is when we see a cop looking over Hauptmann's shoulder and demanding that he misspell certain words, with Hautmann saying, "That's not the right spelling. I know how to spell." What the audience isn't told is that the police had found Hauptmann's notebooks and other of his writings, unconnected with the case and some dating from years earlier, in which he uses the exact same misspellings of certain words as in the ransom note.The ransom money, the fact that Hauptmann had been out of work for ages yet, just days after the kidnapping, suddenly started spending big money on luxury items, the piece of wood from the ladder which matched exactly the gap in Hauptmann's floorboard, the marks of his tools on the ladder, the fact that he'd burgled a house in Germany using a home-made ladder, all the evidence against him is completely damning.But of course the public love nothing better than a good conspiracy theory and there are always sensational authors on hand to supply them, however absurd they may be. As one of the most knowledgeable websites on the case puts it:"Today, the Lindbergh phenomena is a giant hoax perpetrated by people who are taking advantage of an uninformed and cynical public. Notwithstanding all of the books, TV programs, and legal suits, Hauptmann is as guilty today as he was in 1932 when he kidnapped and killed the son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindbergh."This is a terrible movie. Don't believe a single word of it.
richards-5
This is a pretty shameless piece of film-making. There is absolutely no hard evidence to support the film's flat claim that Bruno Hauptmann was entirely innocent, and most accounts of the Lindbergh kidnapping case, even those which cast doubt on his conviction, suggest that he was an arrogant, boorish man, not the kindhearted saint presented here. It's as unscrupulously manipulative as Ludovic Kennedy's original book, which has the temerity, in a work of non-fiction, to tell us what people were thinking about - and more than 60 years ago at that. There is, similarly, no back-up offered for the vilification of several of those responsible for Hauptmann's conviction. There are plenty of reasons to view the case with alarm, and to believe that Hauptmann was the victim of a miscarriage of justice (which doesn't necessarily mean he was innocent). To present so biased and distorted an account of the case does no good to the cause of getting at the facts. Stick with 1976's "The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case", which sustains a neutral viewpoint - and is far more disturbing.
