Simply Perfect

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I didn't know much about this Albert Fish until this week. I saw 'Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Redemption' a few days before and even though that was not a good film, the story remains one that is haunting, to say the least. I went on reading up on him on the net and came across this film.Patrick Bauchau does a very decent job of portraying The Gray Man, but overall I found this to be a mediocre film. The settings, the clothing, the music, it was all nicely done, but somehow something felt amiss. A well worked out storyline perhaps? Beside Fish, the viewer is presented with the primary detective on the case - voice-over included - and his investigation. I found it to be rather boring and cliché and not adding to the story of Fish. Then there were the children of Fish, which made for an interesting angle, but somehow that didn't impress me much either. It all just didn't come together.I'm glad I've seen this one, and it gets away with a small 6 out of 10, but that's about it. If only David Fincher would take it upon him to make more films about infamous serial killers...

Considering that this film was supposed to tell the story about one of the most bizarre serial killers in history, it's absolutely amazing that the end result we get served is this tedious muck. Something is definitely wrong when you realize that the film you are watching easily can be labeled " a film for the whole family", a film the Hallmark channel would "proudly present." Instead of a thoroughly deep-dive into Mr. Fish's murky psyche, a proper probing into the mechanizations that drove this deranged specimen of a man, a both tell and show with the slaughter and cannibalizing of Grace Budd, what you get is a badly acted detective-story ( with film-noiresque monologue ), a lead that don't remotely look like Albert Fish, and a misplaced focus on the detective in charge. The gore is of course non-existent, and while this "tell, don't show" approach work excellently in films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dahmer, here it is sorely missed. Inexcusable. Not to mention that certain liberties is being taken in regards to what really happened.Bottom line; if you want a scary film for the kiddies ( age 3-12 ), go for this one!! On the other hand, if you want a properly nasty horror-film about good old Albert, you better keep your fingers crossed for a director that truly have the courage to handle this dark material the way it deserves! Hopefully soon one will come along......

"The Gray Man" is an important addition to the horror genre. Director Scott Flynn chose to tell the story of Albert Fish, a serial murderer who is believed to have murdered and cannibalized several young children in the late 1920s and early 1930s in the environs of New York City. Fish worked as a handyman and painter in most of the neighborhoods he lived in, and was seen for the most part as a relatively inoffensive and grandfatherly individual by many people. In reality, he is said to have possessed a raging sociopathic pattern that knew its roots in the harsh treatment he received in state orphanages run by religious fanatics in the upper boroughs of the city. Flynn's film gives the viewer a slight background of Fish's character so that even the most offended audience member can understand Fish's motivation. The man remains genuinely creepy in depiction, however, simply due to the deep horror of life that true degeneracy, or "evil", if you must, rarely has a loud "telegraph". Albert Fish is scary because he looks like the earnest, hard working sort of character who you'd hire to repair your furnace. "The Gray Man" is also a significant work in horror, because it puts to rest the idea that a grisly tale must rely upon grisly depiction in order to unsettle the viewer. Director Flynn has wisely chosen not to graphically re-create the murders, and does not bother with lurid presentations of children being dissected or disposed of as meat. It might seem ridiculous that I would even have to point this out, but anyone who knows contemporary horror understands how little credit all too many Gothic film makers lend the imagination of their public anymore. I don't want to belabor the point, suffice it to say that "The Gray Man" puts films like "Saw" and "Hostel" to shame. Very few things in this life are as terrifying as a child murderer, Flynn and his cast put this true story across without much reliance on the sensational. Why, they even rely on a few little tricks like "atmosphere" here. Imagine that.Leading the cast is veteran actor Patrick Bauchau, who brings the character of Albert Fish himself a terrifying but not entirely unlikeable quality. His work in this film is a delicately balanced affair that is more effective than that of Anthony Hopkins in "The Silence of the Lambs". Hopkin's performance in that work is outstanding, of course, but it is relatively melodramatic and over- the- top compared to the craft and restraint Bauchau offers here.. Following Bauchau up as the intrepid Missing Persons investigator Will King is Jack Conley, whose world weary demeanor I found very welcome in this age of celluloid depictions of lantern jawed law enforcement officials who always know what to do. Conley's King is a man unsure in his surety, a gumshoe who's likable for the same reasons we like Jake Gittes in "Chinatown" and Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon". He's sort of an anti-bureaucratic bureaucrat.The other supporting cast members are quite good, most notably the perpetually bemused children of Albert Fish, Gertrude and Albert Jr., who know him alternately as both solid family man and abusive personality. The roles are handled by Mollie Milligan and Silas Mitchell. Jillian Armaneni is powerful as the mother of Grace Budd, the victim of Fish whose disappearance finally put investigators on his trail, and Lexi Ainsworth is very fine as Grace herself. Ben Hall holds his own as Grace's brother Albert, and character actor Bill Flynn has an appearance as the notorious Dr. Frederick Wertham (yes, he of the controversial 1950s anti- comic book crusade) who was a defense witness at the Fish trial as Fish and his crew pleaded insanity.As for accuracy, who knows? So much has been written about the case that, now, seventy five years after the events themselves, it's even more difficult to separate the folklore from the reality of the moment. Albert Fish has entered that realm of real-life bogeymen with a distinction known by few, so the scuttlebutt will continue to blossom. Be that as it may, "The Gray Man" is a finely crafted, ambitious and riveting horror film, one of the few in the contemporary samples from the genre that is worthy of the time it takes to view it.

A solid thriller about Albert Fish (a very fine performance by Patrick Bauchau), the real life serial killer of children in 1930's America. Fish seemed a harmless old man, but in 1934 he was arrested as the murderer of several missing children he somehow duped their families into leaving him with (using an assumed name throughout). Part character study and part detective procedural, The Gray Man wisely avoids graphic horror and sensationalism (Fish's murders, for instance, are never shown on camera), and while it is rather conventional, it is nevertheless quite chilling nonetheless and it shows a director with a very keen sense of storytelling.