You can't kill the bogeyman,but you can convict him

Cropsey

Crit

It was so hot and juicy today (just moments ago, the storm clouds broke--ahhhhhhh!) that I initially considered avoiding the film that would engage my overheated brain in favor of the one that would just involve my less sensitive viscera (Salt). Then I reviewed the rottentomatoes.com numbers for both, and just couldn't do it. Anyway, the nice thing about brainless pix long on action and sex appeal is that they're a lot likelier to be around next week.

So.

I expected this documentary about the disappearance of several Staten Island children and the weird loner declared by acclamation the perpetrator--and about the rare urban legend with a firm foundation in fact--to be about the nature of evil and the dissonance between appearance and reality, and it is about those things, but ultimately what it's about is our need for narrative structure. At one point a fairly distant relative of one of the victims, in her only appearance in the film, blurts tearfully, "We just want closure." Exactly: it's the thing we want more than anything, far more than we want anything clearly identifiable as fact. We're so hot for closure that we "print the legend" rather than settle for a narrative chockablock with ambiguity and loose ends, which is what this one very much seems to be. And so the weirdo (and he is that; the filmmakers aren't apologists for him any more than for the community's certainly) in prison for one kidnapping (but not the murder, even though the victim's body is the only one ever found) is convicted of another on evidence that mocks the name. And the triumphant citizens vow to continue to pursue justice for the families of the other victims--which is unquestionably an admirable ambition, but one at the mercy of a narrative whose end we already know, simply because we know it.

I was telling my daughter about it on the phone while I walked home, and at this point she observed, "That's almost more scary than the crimes." Again: exactly.