The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer (1999)

Wonderful character development!

Overrated and overhyped

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I found this film gripping considering it is very long and the lead characters were particularly well portrayed. In fact it would be hard to find any bad acting in this film and it is directed in such a way that you want to know what happens. The ending might be disappointing to some as it ends in 1999 when the killer was still in France. He has since been extradited and is in Jail. The real killer wasn't as good looking as the actor portraying him and it is hard to imagine why so many girls fell for him. I guess he really was charismatic and could use mind control techniques, but even more amazing is how many intelligent people got taken in by him. That older rich woman was apparently sending him money while he was on the run ( she should have been arrested as far as I am concerned ). However great little film and well worth a watch.

After seeing this film and reading that it is a documentary soap based on a 'real case', I asked myself what understanding we have of truth in visual or textual narratives. My first intuition was that in this film there are clichees put together in a stereotype way to tell a story with a conservative political message. Just the counterpiece of the more commonly told (and likewise simplistic) liberal story of the suppressed girl from the province, old fashioned and educated with narrow-minded moralist principles who moves to a urban environment and develops unimagined qualities, gets famous, discovers sex etc. Even if the story told in the "Hunt for the Unicorn-Killer" is "true" in the sense that the director was inspired by an incident with structurally the same facts - the way it is told, is absolutely incredible. Neither of the characters really wins any depth. The motives of the girl to stay with her friend who humiliates her and the motives for the friend to murder her out of jealoucy - even if the film insinuates that he never loved her stay obscure. The question why an explained pacifist kills her girl friend is answered in a too simplistic way, if the film suggests he was only having his ideas to make himself interesting and to seduce girls. I think it is also problematic to make a piece of fiction and pretend it to be real keeping the real names of persons and places. People might no longer distinguish between what was the case and what was just invented to make the plot more interesting. I think truth in narratives is more about cases being representative (even if they are invented) and told in a way sophisticated enough to come close to the complexities of real life. I rate it 1 out of 10.

I have read a previous comment on this movie, and yes it is a long movie, if it is watched all at once, like on Lifetime Movies. It was originally a two part mini-series. I think people need to remember the horrible death Holly Maddux endured. Ira Einhorn is in the public light where he loves to be, whether it is bad or good. Of course where he is concerned, their is no good. It is so important to remember Holly Maddux a young women who was trying to make a life for herself, never to marry, or have children, taken from this world at the hand of another, and in such a brutal murder. My family and I payed our respect to her grave just yesterday, along with the graves of her father and mother. We have never met the family but had such strong feelings this movie gave us, we felt compelled to find her marker and leave flowers. I hope this movie touches you the way it touched me and my family, and that you will remember HOLLY MADDUX the victim, the person, and remember the family who would not give up until justice was done. The hippie guru has now been sent home to face his crime and punishment from France. He does however get to have a new trial...Go figure...That ought to make for interesting watch as well. How can you plead innocent for something you ran from for 23 years. He's toast.

If you're looking to dissuade your daughters from the fella she adores but you think little of, have her sit through this. Ira Einhorn was a celebrity of the peace / earth movements of the 60s and 70s. Extremely well respected, his peacenik persona cloaked a darker side that hated women and thought very little of anything other than himself and his personal causes. When his long-time girlfriend Holly Maddux decides to leave him, she disappears and eighteen months later her decomposed body is found in a locked trunk in his apartment. Through it all, Ira maintains his innocence, doing his best to convince the world that the American Government set him up, that Holly's murder was done to 'embarrass' him. Out on bail, he flees the country and lives at large in the UK until being caught in the late 90s in France. The French, however, knowing he has been convicted in absentia of Holly's murder and faces life in prison without parole once returned to the US, refuses to extradict him. Apparently, a higher court overturned this decision and he is currently appealing a later order to be sent back. Kevin Anderson and Naomi Watts are superb as the leads; he gives you the shivers as he unveils the layers of a clearly narcissistic sociopath and she, simply, breaks your heart. How many promising young women have you known who fall victim to their own lack of identity and the whims of an abusive lover? Filmed as a tv miniseries, this is a three and a half hour vehicle for victim's rights. While the first half of this is used to set up Ira and Holly's dysfunctional relationship, the perspective of Holly's family, and the anguish they go through in trying to bring their daughter's murderer to justice, takes precedence in the second half. If the evidence weren't so damning against Ira Einhorn, this would be just another manipulative movie of the week (however well acted). As it is, it leaves the viewer haunted by the possibilities of a life brutally extinguished and infuriated by the fact that justice is continually skirted by the one person responsible for the crime.