The Perfect Witness Review-By Kelsey Zukowski

Starring: Wes Bentley, Mark Borkowski, Joanne Baron
Directed By: Thomas Dunn
Written By: Thomas Dunn, Mark Borkowski
Alternative title: The Ungodly
Released: 2007
Grade: B

The Perfect Witness is Behind the Mask with a serious tone. Both involve a character who wants to report or expose a murderer’s ways to the public yet with that murderer’s cooperation. We also get to see that other side to the killer where he has a normal life, in this case he is even a volunteer and a major support system for many kids in need. There is questioning good and evil blurring and how far you would go to make the film of a lifetime, bringing a lot of tension forth.

Mick (Bentley) is a film school graduate who is now living back home with his mom since he can’t seem to catch a break. He has had alcohol and drug problems in the past, which his mother become more and more worried about. Mick tracks down a serial killer on the loose, James Lemac (Borkowski), and actually manages to predict where his next killing will take place. Mick is there even before James and captures the entire murder he commits on video. In hopes of making a whole film around this man Mick tries bargaining with James. He tells him that he will portray James as a human with feelings and emotions if he lets him interview him further agreeing not to release it until James’ is caught . Otherwise he will tape the murder video footage to the police. James is wary of this being a trap, but he agrees. James gets aggressive in each of the interviews convinced that Mick just wants to hear the brutality of him being a monster. When Mick talks to James’ sister, Megan (Baron), he learns that James actually does have a normal life and it actually very charitable. He just also happens to be a killer. The more Mick digs the more he realized that there are elements of James’ past that made him what he is today. He is taken down to the basement where horrors were forced upon James for years.

Mick has every intention of depicting James as the monster he believes him to be free from any sense of redemption. Mick is sure that this is what will launch his career and the fact that he is an accomplice to murders is only a detail that won’t matter when the shock and footage of the truth is released. However, soon things turn on him. He realizes that James has approached his mother, compliments her eyes, gets her address, and even cuts her eyes out of a picture he sends to the house. She is his next target and his preference for moms just gives him more of a motive to cut her eyes out. Mick tries to work with James and agrees to give him the tape, which only gets his best friend and editor killed. Mick tracks down James’ mother, who was believed to be dead, in hopes of messing with James and getting his mom back. He stays with James on his murdering plots and doesn’t stop him, which brings him farther in to his world than he ever hoped to be.

After recently seeing Wes Bentley as the killer, it was cool to see his spying for on video tecniques that he used in American Beauty as a filmmaker blackmailing a killer and being absorbed in all that he does in The Perfect Witness. Bentley shows the different stages and emotions of his character very well. He shows desperation, confusion, curiosity, yearning for success, vulnerability, drug dependency, and helplessness. Mark Brokowski brought the villain to life through the dialogue and performance of him. There was vivid, strong, and horrifying language that questioned man framed by the forceful and frightening performance that Brokowski perfected. Being at both ends of the creative process, it is clear he was very in touch with who this killer was.

There is a lot of powerful questioning in the film. Even if we don’t really consider the more unconventional mind frame that is suggested it is the thought and the insight in to James as a murderer that is really effective. James has a preference for mothers, because he sees them as much more unprotected than children. The thought is that this is because they can hold their own and don’t need protection. James proves them wrong and clearly his family issues has something to do with this too. This speaks volumes to how long your upbringing can affect you especially feelings of the parents that are responsible for the actions behind it. James’ murderous ways of killing started at a young age because that is when his life came to be too much for him. Rather than dealing with it, he took it out on others by taking others’ lives. He started with cats, by stoning them and nailing them to tress, which is ironic since he has cats now. Now, James really goes for pretty eyes in his victims so he can rip them out. He claims that his victims choose him rather than the other way around. He claims that he isn’t sicker than any other man, because they all have the potential; he is just brave enough to act on this potential. The theory is that consequence is the only thing that stops anyone from killing others; it is fear not a consciousness of right and wrong.

There is a real obsession on both sides between Mick and James. James is clearly obsessed with the things that happened to him in his childhood. He can’t let go of them and instead of getting any sort of peace or even getting revenge on the ones who were responsible he takes it out on others. He obsesses over mothers and eyes in particular as a way of feeling like he is enforcing justice even though it is upon those who are completely innocent. After awhile, he became so used to this life of murdering that he didn’t feel complete without it. Mick is obsessed with making a name for himself that he becomes a part of the thing that he is critiquing. He knows what he is seeing is wrong, but he can’t look away. Even when everything has changed, when loved ones are in danger, he still goes along with James on his murdering spree since it still shocks and intrigues him. Sure the initial idea seems obvious to go wrong. When blackmailing a serial killer it really can’t end in anything but death. The amount of time Mick stays with James even when he turns on him does seem a little unrealistic, but it still serves us the point that we are fascinated with serial killers even when we become personally affected. Mick probably should have taken some measures to protect those around him, knowing what dangers there. I do think going in to James life more, the past as well as his motivations and tactics in killing, would have made the film even more interesting. What it did go in to and the language it used was well enough done to satisfy our curiosities of his mind. The Perfect Witness shows a few deaths, but they are all quick. Don’t watch this movie for the gore, but for the suspense. There are a lot of very tense moments that are shown through the mystery of a murderer and the effect it has on a desperate filmmaker.