In 2005 the world saw a new incarnation of famed writer TRUMAN CAPOTE in the form of PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN (COLD MOUNTAIN, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III) in which he won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal.  His film of course was none other than the critically acclaimed CAPOTE.  Now one might begin to wonder why another studio would even think to "one up" an Oscar winning film, let alone actually act on it.  Yet, like any good story that is truly worth telling there are always more sides than one to the story, and another side to the story that CAPOTE told is WARNER BROS. INFAMOUS.

Starring TOBEY JONES (THE PAINTED VEIL, FINDING NEVERLAND), SANDRA BULLOCK (THE LAKE HOUSE, SPEED), SIGOURNEY WEAVER (ALIEN, THE VILLAGE) and the "blonde Bond" himself DANIEL CRAIG, INFAMOUS is definitely not lacking "star" talent.  The film begins a little oddly I must say as we are whisked into America's past as we see GWYNETH PALTROW (I guess doing a self impersonation from DUETS??) portraying KITTY DEAN singing on stage with the El Morocco Band.  Luckily this is the only time we have to sit through her singing.  From there we see TRUMAN and BABE PALEY (SIGOURNEY WEAVER) enjoying an evening out in their normal high society fashion.  From there the film is a bit slow as we are inundated with all of the characters and celebrities that fill the life of TRUMAN (i.e. HARPER LEE, GORE VIDAL etc.)

INFAMOUS doesn't really get going until the second half of the film when we first get to meet the perpetrators of the Holcomb, KS family murder in 1959, which spawned CAPOTE's famous novel IN COLD BLOOD.  The killers PERRY SMITH and DICK HICKOCK are played this time around by DANIEL CRAIG and LEE PACE, who both do amazing jobs portraying these conflicted characters.  Especially DANIEL CRAIG who nearly every time he is on camera completely controls and owns his scenes, especially the scene where PERRY SMITH finds out the title of the book TRUMAN is writing.

Directed by DOUGLAS MCGRATH, INFAMOUS definitely took the hit at the box office due to its timing and the fact that barely a year earlier CAPOTE was "all the rage".  Which in turn made the mass public seemingly shun this film as if it were some lesser film or even a "knock off", which it is very easy just from the films synopsis to mistake it as.  Though in reality one could not be much further from the truth.  Yes, both CAPOTE and INFAMOUS revolve heavily around TRUMAN's relationship with PERRY SMITH, but beyond this I would have to say the comparison should end.  I do feel in some ways that PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN had a little bit more believable line delivery as TRUMAN, but TOBEY JONES physically and aesthetically is much more believable as CAPOTE than HOFFMAN was.  But on a bottom line, they both did a better job than I could do, so a "hats off" to them both.

DVD Features:
Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), 
Commentary by writer/director Douglas McGrath
Theatrical trailer