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Capote

5/10

Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr, Chris Cooper, Bruce Greenwood

Director: Bennett Miller

The lesser of two films on the same subject, this potentially absorbing story about eccentric author Truman Capote and the five years he spent on his last and most famous book, In Cold Blood, proves longish (and dullish) in the telling.

Winning a deserved Academy Award, Hoffman gives a truly well sustained impression of the reedily-spoken gay bon viveur who becomes fascinated (and has his life changed) by the case of the slaughter of a family by two drifters, who were after a non-existent fortune they believed lay hidden in the house.

Capote delves deeply into the case and those it touched, as well as befriending Perry Smith (Collins Jr, also very good), the more complex of the two murderers. Alas, this version is drawn out as painfully as the killers' sundry stays of execution.

David Quinlan

USA 2005. UK Distributor: Columbia/Sony. Colour.
114 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 31 Dec 2006