Not every true crime movie has to be as good as Zodiac. But what a world it would be! Even matching Mindhunter would be great, but I won’t get hung up on bringing up David Fincher anymore.
Unfortunately, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile doesn’t live up to its title. The more apt title is Extremely Dull, Shockingly Reserved, and Average. Its intentions are never clear and its success certainly hinges on how informed audiences are about Ted Bundy and his crimes.
For those watching that know the background of Bundy as a charming and handsome womanizer, the media circus surrounding him, and most importantly his crimes, the whole production is surprisingly neutered. To its credit, that means it never enters territory that defends Bundy or makes excuses for him.
There’s no attempt at understanding him or providing context for his crimes, so there’s no chance of falling into that trap. That’s a shame because there are moments of insight from Bundy himself that could turn into something greater, like how he entrapped and manipulated Joanna (Angela Sarafyan) during his national event of a trial. Moments like those only provide glimpses at Bundy and his tendencies, but no true insight beyond how enchanted women were with him.
This all plays out like a documentary that takes no side. That probably shouldn’t come as a surprise since director Joe Berlinger comes from a documentary background. His work has been nominated for seven Emmys (winning twice) and an Oscar, but his transition to feature filmmaking does not translate as well as one would hope and entirely hinges on Zac Efron’s portrayal.
Even though Efron’s work is strong, imitating Bundy to surprising effect, the whole production has an air of unoriginality. Once the credits begin to roll, a highlight reel plays, showing scenes that were verbatim in the script to provide context of just how close Efron was to Bundy’s intonation and utter lack of self-awareness. The issue for me is subjective but like so many true story films, undercuts the performance at hand. Efron’s performance speaks for itself and creates a whole world itself. Instead of believing in his work with material that fails to elevate his role, the sense becomes that his acting was only good because it looked and kind of sounded like the mass-murderer.
Perhaps Extremely Wicked‘s greatest fault is it doesn’t even dare to want to be something, let alone display enough to have an identity crisis. The latter would be preferable. Jumping from Bundy’s days in an orange jumpsuit to how he met his wife Liz (Lily Collins) and then almost straight into a courtroom drama, there’s absurd whiplash that ultimately prevents any meaningful thoughts to form.
The one advantage it holds being a courtroom drama for the majority of the runtime is John Malkovich as the judge. It’s perhaps the most reserved he’s been in years and gives a monologue that ends the film on a high note — refreshing for a movie that lacks them.
Maybe Extremely Wicked is just a product of unfortunate timing. There are more insightful Netflix true crime projects including The Ted Bundy Tapes (which was created and produced by Berlinger) from earlier in the year, and audiences have become a bit desensitized to stories like Bundy’s crimes. Berlinger holds back on recreating Bundy’s acts and also avoids analyzing the aftermath and search for him. In turn, it doesn’t turn into anything but 110 minutes of an over-produced straight-to-DVD event.
Overall Grade: 4.5 out of 10
