Matisse van Rossum’s review published on Letterboxd:
Alexandre Moors's feature length directorial debut, Blue Caprice, is an intense character study of the two perpetrators of the Beltway Sniper Attacks of 2002, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo. The actual killings are not a major part of the film, being presented montage-style toward the end of the film. This is a story about the characters first and foremost, and how their psychology caused their actions. It's about one man's vendetta against the world and how he shapes and corrupts a bitter young mind in order to get what he wants.
Blue Caprice is the definition of a slow burn film. If you're expecting high octane murderous action, this isn't the film for you. The pacing is excellent throughout though, except for the ending, which I'll get to shortly. In terms of character development, unfortunately the characters are pretty one dimensional. John is evil and hatred in almost its purest state, and Lee is a typical moody teenager. However, the performances are pretty solid. Isaiah Washington is the shining (but horrifying) star of this film as John Muhammad. His intensity is frightening and this is a character that you're forced to become close to, even though you don't want to, but the film never tries to make you empathize with him. My roommate didn't like this aspect, but I actually found it rather effective. It's difficult to judge Tequan Richmond's performance because Lee spends most of the film staring moodily into the distance, but the few times he does have any extensive dialogue he seems to handle it pretty well.
Visually, Blue Caprice is stunning. It lives in the close-up. It's almost claustrophobic. These characters are abhorrent, but you're forced to stay close to them, physically as well as psychologically. This is also a very tonal film. It does a superb job of switching seamlessly between beautiful, vibrant atmospheres to visceral, gritty ones. The cinematography is excellent and it's remarkably well edited. Atmosphere always plays a huge role in making a film good, for me, at least, and Blue Caprice is wonderfully atmospheric. Though a relatively minor part of the film, John and Lee's killing spree is executed so effectively in tone as well as shot composition and editing that it actually elicited a surprising emotional response from me, which is rare. I was absolutely disgusted. But I liked it, because I liked the fact that a film like this could disgust me like films like Saw can't. It's not about the gore (which there is none of in Blue Caprice), it's about the implications. And that's something that this film does quite well.
Unfortunately, now I have to get to Blue Caprice's weaknesses. It's plagued by gaping plot holes and insufficient explanations. I don't need to go into details, but suffice it so say that there are relatively important details that are completely glossed over. There are cases of lazy script writing that just frustrated me. But the most unforgivable thing about Blue Caprice is its ending. Moors shows that he knows how to handle pacing for the majority of the film. He shows that he can build tension and coax emotions from his audience. But then it all falls flat in the last 5 or 10 minutes. It just absolutely faceplants. And it does it in such a way that as I was walking out of the theater, all I could think about were the things I didn't like about the movie. It wasn't until I started writing this review that all the things I like came back to me and I realized that I did, in fact, enjoy it.
Despite the things that Blue Caprice does wrong, it's obvious that Alexandre Moors has incredible potential as a director, and the fact that this is his first feature film makes its inconsistencies a little more forgivable. But I think this film makes it apparent more than anything else that Moors is a director to keep an eye on, and I look forward to seeing his future attempts.