Movies - Citizen X

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	Movies - Citizen X

Citizen X is a made-for-TV movie, released in 1995, which gives a fictionalised account of the Ukrainian serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo—who was convicted of killing 52 people—and the efforts of detectives in the Soviet Union to capture him.

The film was directed by Chris Gerolmo, was based on a book by Robert Cullen, and stars Stephen Rea as Detective Viktor Burakov, Donald Sutherland as Col. Mikhail Fetisov, Burakov's commanding officer, Max von Sydow as Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky, a psychologist assisting in the case, and Jeffrey DeMunn as the killer.

As well as being a crime thriller, the movie tries to make a serious point about propaganda and bureaucracy contributing to the failure to capture Chikatilo, since his crimes were not widely reported for fear of revealing that such things occurred in the "perfect" Soviet Union.

Though hardly a movie to watch for relaxation, this work is in a real sense a masterpiece. Rarely has a western-made film better evoked the Eastern Bloc atmosphere, as well as the gradual changes overcoming that region from the 1980s on. Likewise, few films one can think of have had the patience to document at length the difficulties good men face under a political system which goes out of its way to threaten, but - perhaps even more effectively and insidiously - to tire and bore, them into submissive inactivity. The viewer finds him/herself simply rooting for von Sydow, Sutherland and most especially Rea, as they ultimately prevail in the name of justice.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Citizen X ]

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