A good story trapped inside a bad movie, True Story is about two assholes. One, Michael Finkel (Jonah Hill), was a writer for the New York Times until he got caught making shit up for a story; the other, Christian Longo (James Franco), was accused of murdering his wife and his three young children on the coast of Oregon. On the run, Longo used Finkel's name as an alias; on the outs, Finkel found out about Longo and decided to write a book about him. Done well, there can be a sleazy, skeevy appeal to true crime; done poorly, those same stories are little more than an excuse to leer at others' misfortune. Neither director Rupert Goold nor his actors seem sure where that line is. by Erik Henriksen