An American Crime

Too drawn-out, which in 92 minutes of running time must be clearly the fault of the people behind this film. Before it slightly gets under your skin, half an hour goes by, where the motivations of the characters are developed and their personalities and relationships are revealed, but in an outrageously impersonal way. This means you will be watching a petty bourgeois extremely poor family and often not understand the actions and thought of the characters. The second half is more promising, as there is violence and atmosphere, together with the brilliant Catherine Keener, who will sweep you off your feet. However, even though the expressive value is strong and the film has an upward trend in quality from beginning to end, it could have been made much better – more briskly and more powerfully. (01.07.2015)

Kaum zu glauben, dass An American Crime auf wahren Begebenheiten basiert. Dass Menschen wirklich solche schrecklichen Dinge machen, die uns hier die Filmemacher zeigen. Die schaurige Geschichte sieht dabei anfangs ganz anders aus – sie artet aber in eine unglaublich grausame Vorführung aus, in eine Demonstration dessen, was ein fanatischer "Mensch" (die Anführungszeichen sind hier notwendig) im Namen von gewissen edlen Zielen anrichten kann und wie einfach es ist, für seine Tat (sein Verbrechen) einen Mittäter zu finden. Die Schauspieler*innen sowie die Nicht-Schauspieler*innen, die in An American Crime erscheinen, sind großartig. Ich möchte mich auch beim Regisseur bedanken, der weiß, was die Zuschauer*innen aushalten. Er zeigt nicht mehr, als nötig ist, um in dem Publikum ein Gefühl des Ekels hervorzurufen. Der letzte Film, der in mir ein ähnliches Gefühl ausgelöst hat, war Der fremde Sohn. Brr. (10.07.2010)

An exemplary and tasteless midcult film that exploits a real tragedy for mundane, first-rate melodrama, as evidenced only by the five-star reviews that grind their axes about the death penalty in the comments here, not to mention the fact that the film should have been made in 1990 but one of the victims disagreed, so it was only when she died in 2004 that preparations for filming immediately began with all sensitivity. This film is not only not shot very well, given that the purpose of most of the scenes that are supposed to show the transformations of the characters' motivations could be described in a brief sentence, but more importantly panders cheaply to the shocked small-towners who watch movies from the ironing board. The real-life situations, which need no significant formal input to achieve their horrors, are subjected to a jerky camera and are cut to keep us from being completely jolted out of our couch comfort, and even keep changing the players from whose perspectives we are supposed to watch the whole situation unfold. This is not helped by gnawing the character of the abused girl into an inflatable victim, because the character of Sylvia has no personality whatsoever, she just looks innocent, pretty, and keeps rolling her giant eyes around. The final betrayal, which is probably meant to stimulate the need to grant the heroine at least something like a good ending, is a disgusting underscoring of everything that preceded it. Oh, and the added bonus is the review by Shadwell, who tries to justify succumbing to kitsch by saying he's a good and brave man. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. (25.06.2018)

The harshest part of the entire film is the climax. The insane torture and humiliation that is continually escalates higher and higher, with the viewer forced to watch as the last spark of life gradually fades from the protagonist... An American Crime is the perfect vehicle for typifying the despotic mother who, with the help of threats and her "child-rearing practices", completely controls and manipulates almost all her children, who carry out atrocities out of fear for themselves that leave a sane person standing in awe of them... The director Tommy O'Haver has managed to perfectly capture the characters, every action has its justification, its cause, which on the other hand is often due to helplessness and fear of the same "punishment" as in the case of Silvia. A hard and harsh confession of atrocities that are unfortunately common in the Land of Dreams. (05.06.2009)