Green River Killer

Green River Killer has been written and directed by Ulli Lommel, a 26-year veteran of the film industry with over 30 movies under his belt. Yet despite all of Lommel’s experience, Green River Killer comes off as a completely inept and pointless effort that one would just assume is the work of a first-time filmmaker. The movie details the real-life exploits of a notorious serial killer named Gary Ridgway (played by George Kiseleff), who was responsible for the deaths of almost 50 women (mostly prostitutes). Lommel’s decision to shoot Green River Killer using cheap digital cameras proves to be a disastrous choice almost immediately, as the film has all the style of a home video. Making matters worse are the various cinematic tricks employed by the filmmaker, presumably in an effort to compensate for the low-rent vibe. Lommel’s equally incompetent screenplay eschews anything even resembling character development in favor of an astoundingly repetitive structure, in which Ridgway finds a new victim, kills them, and then moves onto the next one (this is repeated ad nauseam until the film reaches its merciful conclusion). The end result is an amateurish, utterly interminable piece of work that has absolutely nothing to offer in terms of keeping the viewer engaged (which is no small feat given the complexity of Ridgway himself, though Lommel refuses to even marginally examine the man’s deranged psyche).

no stars out of ****