2013's BOSTON STRANGLER is a clever, taut remake of the 1968 film that starred Tony Curtis as the title serial killer. In reality, it's a very different take.
There are no comedic actors within a mile of this Hulu original thriller, but it's packed with strong performances.
Keira Knightley (The Imitation game, Atonement) stars as reporter Loretta McLaughlin, an intrepid reporter with The Boston Globe who is tired of being relegated to "women's stories".
As a series of horrifying strangling murders begins to terrify Boston, she is the lone reporter starting to see a pattern.
Chris Cooper (August Osage County, The Town) is reliably great as her editor Jack Maclaine. At first, he cant fight his urge to keep her on the "Lifestyle"desk reporting on home shows and flower festivals, but Loretta gets to him and begins to take a more active look at the killings.
Knightley is very good as Loretta, balancing her kids and supportive husband James (Morgan Spector) at home, while banging her head against the old boys club everyday at the office and putting everything on the line for THE STORY.
Before long, another excellent female reporter Jean Cole (Carrie Coon) is working alongside Loretta as they trail blaze their way through the evidence.
Alessandro Nivola (Face Off, A Most Violent Year) is excellent as Detective Conley, close to the trail of a relentless serial killer and appreciative of Loretta's insights. He becomes her inside source.
Watch for Robert John Burke (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Rescue Me) as Eddie Holland, Maclaine's boss. He's perfectly cast and his square offs with Cooper are perfection.
Some of the angles of the case are very intriguing, including why single women of all ages, living alone, continue to let a strange man into their apartment, after many deaths and warnings on TV and in the press?
The ages and types of victim seem all over the map.
What ties them together?
Writer/Director Matt Ruskin creates constant tension, creating a tense mashup of "All the President's Men" and "Zodiac" that rides squarely on the shoulders of Knightley and Coon, both of who are up to the task.
BOSTON STRANGLER serves up new insight and perspective on one of the most well known serial murder cases of the last century. With it's 1960's setting perfectly captured, it gets a tight and fascinating B.
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