The new thriller/courtroom drama "Rampage" would like to be a thoughtful examination of one of the serious controversies of our time, capital punishment. But writer-director William Friedkin ("The French Connection," "The Exorcist") can't quite get a handle on his characters, dives headlong into sensationalism once too often, and the film's troubled production history shows at the seams.
"Rampage" was actually finished more than five years ago but became stuck in legal limbo as part of the money woes of its financing studio, the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group.But the film was finally released in the major urban centers last month, after Friedkin was given an opportunity to spruce it up with some final post-production touches. They didn't help.
The story, which we are told was "inspired by true events," begins with the gruesome killing spree of one Charles Reece (Alex McArthur), who murders an elderly couple and their grown daughter, then a young mother and one of her small children. He also mutilates the bodies, drinks their blood and takes vital organs home to keep in jars in the cellar.
To his credit, Friedkin doesn't dwell on any of this, and there is not a great deal of gore.
But the film does seem to have it in for organized religion. The first killing sequence is intercut with a Catholic mass and later, the killer escapes, murders a priest and smears the church with blood.
The bulk of the film, however, focuses on legal machinations, both in the courtroom and behind closed doors. The defense, of course, plans to plead insanity. The prosecution pushes for the death penalty.
The latter plot element is the main issue at hand, as shown from the viewpoint of an assistant district attorney (Michael Biehn), a liberal who doesn't believe in capital punishment. But his boss says go for it anyway.
Meanwhile, Biehn is troubled by visions of his young daughter, who died of pneumonia six months earlier, paralleled in the film to the death of the murdered child, whose surviving father and young brother are in turmoil.
There are flashbacks and odd fantasies that offer more confusion than explanation, and the film vacillates between stern, documentary-style probing and outrageous, violent thriller cliches. Worse, it never gets under the skin of its protagonist or allows us to understand what he's supposed to be feeling.
There are technical problems, such as obviously overdubbed voice tracks and ragged editing and the film has no resolution. In fact, it has no ending. Everything just sort of stops.
"Rampage" is rated R for violence, some gore and a few scattered profanities.