This film is a curious thing but is entertainingly curious. Not only that it serves as a great showcase for Jack Black as he proves once again that his acting ability is far greater than he is given credit for.

Going entirely against type Black gives a truly believable performance as the kindly, popular, almost saccharine Tiede, yet he his performance manages to have a faint undercurrent of weirdness, which it would seem given the outcome of this story was justified.
One thing that is always difficult to produce is a balanced account of true events, particularly modern true events. In this case the film certainly lays it heart on its sleeve. Tiede was basically a wonderful human being and Nugent some sort of witch. Anyone with any inkling of how life can be must realise that life is far more nuanced than this. To be honest the film is so well acted, paced and directed that throughout you are rooting for the kindly Tiede and virtually booing for MacLaine’s ‘baddie’.

All the acting is at a standard you would expect from the cast MacLaine and McConaughey effortlessly flesh out characters that serve as black hats [no pun intended] to Jack Black’s Tiede. Certainly though it is Black who must take the plaudits with what must be one of his best performances to date. We all know he can play weird, wacky, slightly douche-bag, lovably ignoramuses with his eyes closed, but this button down, slightly uptight popular, personae must have come as breath of fresh air when Mr Black read the script and he took it on with gusto and I have to say he succeeded.

Another piece of A-list casting is the talking heads of the town’s people who actually knew Bernie Tiede if this method proves only one thing it proves that no matter how skilled an actor or director you are you cannot replicate real people talking about real events in their real voices.

Certainly it is a fascinating story but it is definitely told with certain point of view and despite the events I feel the final outcome was probably the correct one.