Rupert Goold‘s True Story (Fox Searchlight, 4.17) is very well made — clean, assured, well-ordered — to relatively little effect. It’s basically a chilly procedural, based on Michael Finkel‘s real-life account (“True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa“), about a couple of guys who couldn’t be more different, a journalist (Jonah Hill) and a murderer (James Franco), who nonetheless share a sociopathic nature. They’ve both done things that are self-destructive and inexplicable, Finkel (Hill) having gotten fired from the N.Y. Times for inaccurate or falsified reporting and Christian Longo (Franco) having murdered his family and then used Finkel’s name while on the lam in Mexico.

“This, at least, is how it seemed to me. The film explains all this and deals with the lying (mostly on Franco’s part) and then a murder trial reveals the facts and then things more or less wind down. True Story isn’t so much chilly as coldly efficient — a well-honed, mildly creepy thing.” — from my Sundance ’15 review.