Monday, February 21, 2011

NY Post Review : Amanda Knox Movie “Offers Almost No Reason To Believe She Was Not Involved”

Posted by Peter Quennell


The Massei Report in English (link above) has been downloaded from PMF and TJMK over 20,000 times now - and finally its full force seems to be hitting home.

This factual and accurate review by New York Post critic Sean Daly is one of several we have already seen which doesn’t incline the preview critic toward Amanda Knox’s non-involvement or innocence. Some excerpts:

As portrayed by the seriously adorable Hayden Panettiere (“Heroes”), Knox, currently serving a 26-year sentence for killing her roommate, Meredith Kercher, is portrayed as a drug-abusing honors student who flaunted her sexuality and mysteriously showed little emotion after the brutal murder…

Details of the Massei Report were discussed openly among the cast and crew during the 23-day shoot near Rome last fall. “Basically we argued every day about whether she was innocent or guilty,” says Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Knox’s mother, Edda Mellas…

The film depicts the Seattle native as almost unaffected by the grizzly killing “” and more concerned with shopping for lingerie than mourning a lost friend. “I was physically ill when I saw [clips on TV],” Knox, 23, told her stepfather Chris Mellas in a phone call from Capanne prison. “I thought I was going to throw up.”

Perhaps she couldn’t stomach the graphic images of Kercher laying on a bedroom floor with her throat slit, coughing up blood.

Another scene shows “Foxy Knoxy” perched on boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito’s lap, kissing in an Italian police station while Kercher’s grief-stricken friends sob. Moments later, the couple, who were both convicted of the slaying, along with Rudy Guede, are shown smoking pot before a sexy romp in bed…

Despite [executive producer Trevor] Walton’s insistence that facts were presented “as impartially as possible,” the movie shows Knox in various reenactments of the crime, and offers almost no reason to believe she was not involved.

Comments

Great article Pete.

Perhaps a positive outcome to this movie is that it will encourage more people to look into this case in more detail then they might have, or bring the case to light to those who dont know anything about it. Hopefully the court report is mentioned in the movie too.

Posted by Barry on 02/21/11 at 03:45 AM | #

When all the Lifetime/Hollywood glitter disappears, the Knox and Mellas clans will resume the hopeless ascent up their slippery media yellow brick road.

Whatever will they tell Amanda Knox when their media wizards fail to unlock and open those heavy steel doors to Capanne Prison?

Sorry Amanda, you just had a bad dream and at Capanne Prison there really is no place like home!

Posted by True North on 02/21/11 at 04:14 AM | #

Panettiere wavered for weeks about whether her character was a criminal or victim. “Even if she is guilty, she has convinced herself that she is innocent,” she says.

“She is not a malicious girl. She didn’t have any intention to do this. Whatever happened that night, four people’s lives were ruined. But it was my job to stay pretty true to form in who Amanda seemed to be as a person.”

To me, this statement by Hayden Panettiere pretty much says she thinks AK is guilty. She is just tiptoeing around coming out and actually saying it.

Posted by Kazwell on 02/21/11 at 05:34 AM | #

Hi Kazwell. Interesting insight. we had focussed more on the first part of Panettiere’s statement where she sounds an apologist. But the thing read as a whole does suggest she is an apologist for someone she and the movie team generally see as guilty.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/21/11 at 03:01 PM | #

Interesting interpretation, Kazwell. Thanks, because you helped me to see this differently. When I read Panetiere’s words, I just thought she sounded a bit dim, to be honest. Or perhaps she has confused the fictional character she is playing with the real life Knox, a convicted killer, who took part in the brutal and horrific murder of an innocent young woman.

Posted by lilly on 02/21/11 at 04:23 PM | #

She is not a malicious girl?

But she did a malicious thing.

So malicious is not ALL she is; its only ONE of the things she is.

Can we be spared fraudulent items such as “50 hrs of Interrogation” ?

Posted by Cardiol MD on 02/21/11 at 06:23 PM | #

I can’t get my head around why a TV movie could sway public opinion when all the facts and the undeniable truth have been out there for some time.
Perhaps David Marriot is busy squirming away due to not being able to influence the way in which his martyr charge is portrayed (although they did have a good go).
Sorry David, somethings are just beyond your reach and influence.
I guess it may be a bit ‘sucky’ for you at this time, but that’s just too bad.
Having said this, I will be certainly not watching this offering on principal.

Posted by Black Dog on 02/21/11 at 06:31 PM | #

Hi Black Dog. Someone just emailed that there is a noticeable trend of surprise among the critics reviewing the movie. (We will put up some links to more reviews soon.)

They generally didnt know the case too well but were prepared to give Ak the benefit of the doubt till they saw it. Having seen it… hmmm. How does one explain all that?

Maybe 20,000 plus have downloaded Massei but a big show like NBC Dateline can reach up to 10 million. That sort of reach is what we had been hoping to see happen.

If Lifetime creates the tipping point, remember, it is based largely on Massei and we were the only ones to translate it, so in a sense we had a hand in an early script.

Otherwise the movie would have been about railroading.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/21/11 at 06:51 PM | #

Ken Tucker’s TV Feb. 21

Comment by
PhanuelB
Tue 02/22/11 1:27 AM
after Ken Tucker’s review of the film:

“4 weeks after the murder, someone at Amanda’s school (U of Washington) posted a comment in the local paper: Amanda Knox once pulled a ‘rape prank’ on her roommie on April Fools Day. Apparently, Amanda got a few guys to put on ski masks and brandish big knives.”

Can this be verified?

Posted by Ernest Werner on 02/22/11 at 11:11 PM | #

The reason I ask for (possible but genuine) verification is because PhanuelB’s quoted comment has the look of a malicious invention—not necessarily his own invention but one he may have heard or read & repeated.

Notice the appearance of convincing specifics: a rape prank (there the malice!), the holiday, April Fools Day, the roommate (analogy), “guys” wearing ski masks & brandishing big knives…

More carefully considered: the “someone” who “posted a comment in the local paper” is unnamed.  And even the paper isn’t named.  “Four weeks” looks specific but, in fact, no date is given.

I am disconcerted to think that I, too, was earlier careless in repeating a rumor of Amanda’s posting her train-trip encounter with a stranger on the internet.  A more precise statement of the case has put it that she sent this information in an e-mail to a friend—not quite the same thing.

As to the alleged (but quite possibly false) April Fools prank, a rape prank with analogies to the murder, this would be psychologically devastating if true.  Not admissible in the trial, surely, but un-dismissible in her psychological profile.

I retain my belief that Amanda’s evident pathology is not something she was born to. Her upbringing & her society have “let” this evil streak develop in her &—assuming a conviction of guilt which will not be overturned—in a tragic hour take over & dominate.  Unspeakable tragedy for the vital & attractive Meredith, but yet a life-tragedy for the foolish & ‘wild’ Amanda, also.

‘Teach us to care & not to care,’
says TS Eliot in a poem.
‘Teach us to sit still.’

Posted by Ernest Werner on 02/23/11 at 06:27 AM | #

Hi Ernest. I think you are where most of us are. We are aware that there were quirks but dont really post on all that we hear. PhanuelB is hardly a reliable source. We do note the first 10 years of very strained home life seemingly caused by Curt who seemed to have an unstoppable rage.

She lived one or two years just off-campus north of UW in Seattle before heading off, and things that happened there including drugs and the rock attack during party she hosted may not have been known to her family. 

We have become very conscious of the many differences between AK and Meredith to Meredith’s advantage, and had AK’s excursion plans to Europe had an ounce of intelligent parent input (for example, as she had no work permit, what was she to do as her funds ran dry?) who knows? Meredith might be alive and Amanda free.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/23/11 at 05:04 PM | #

Peter,
Thanks for your information & for your pertinent reference (underlined) to stewarthome2000, who “works in study abroad” & “knows what unleashed unsupervised colleges students get themselves into.”

His point is that Amanda Knox was NOT on a “study abroad” program sponsored by a university. For then she would have been visited once a month, her roommates would have been spoken to, problems would have been looked for.” A gruesome murder could have been averted.

An unprepared Amanda was turned loose in Europe even after her wild side had begun to show at home. She reflects a society in which a Lady Gaga can be a star (immensely gifted, weird & wild) or a Charlie Sheen be envied for his wild behavior.

Posted by Ernest Werner on 02/23/11 at 10:34 PM | #

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