True Confessions Movie Review

True Confessions, a United Artists release with Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall giving two of the best performances you'll ever see, was barely noticed when it first hit theatres, for reasons which escape me—it's a great movie! Like Cutter's Way, another 1981 United Artists release, it is quintessential neo-noir, a re-invention of the genre for the ‘80s. Loosely based on the unsolved Black Dahlia murder of Elizabeth Ann Short in 1947, the film targets the corruption that would allow such a murder to occur. De Niro is ambitious Father Des Spellacy; Duvall is his brother Tom, a tough police detective. The killer is due to be named “Catholic layman of the year” at a lavish banquet and Tom's investigation eventually leads him to Father Des, who knows the killer but hasn't yet connected the dots (watch the movie!). The murder (and subsequent cover-up) changes both the brothers’ lives forever. Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne's screenplay is sharp and incisive, and Owen Roizman's camera work is a classic evocation of the era. Director Ulu Grosbard, who made his film debut with The Subject Was Roses, is enormously skillful at conveying the complex, tangled relationship of siblings; he would make Georgia with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mare Winningham in 1995.

1981 (R) 110m/C Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, Kenneth McMillan, Charles Durning, Cyril Cusack, Ed Flanders, Burgess Meredith, Louisa Moritz, Rose Gregorio, Dan Hedaya, Jeanette Nolan, Pat Corley, Matthew Faison, Richard Foronjy, James Hong; D: Ulu Grosbard; W: John Gregory Dunne, Joan Didion; C: Owen Roizman; M: Georges Delerue. VHS, LV