Following Best Supporting nods for Moneyball and The Wolf Of Wall Street, Jonah Hill tempts a third Oscar nomination as Michael Finkel, the disgraced former New York Times journalist who struck up a bizarre friendship with Christian Longo (James Franco), who used the writer’s name as an alias while on the run following the murder of his wife and three children. As the trial looms, Finkel is drawn into Longo’s confidence, imagining a true-crime bestseller in the vein of In Cold Blood. But is Longo truly innocent, or a sly, cynical manipulator?
The former comedy co-stars (Knocked Up, This Is The End) are superbly cast in this fascinating, fact-based story, which dredges the morally murky waters of journalistic integrity, media manipulation and narcissistic compulsion.
