BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

SanEat 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."

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

punishmentpark 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...

glyptoteque 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......

oyason "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.

sol1218 **SPOILERS** Interesting film about the life times and crimes of one of America's most notorious serial killers Albert Fish, Patrick Bauchau. Fish not only murdered his victims he cannibalized them as well which made him a perfect candidate, when he stood trial, for an insanity defense that would have saved him a one way trip to the Sing Sing electric chair. Being that Fish was actually looking froward to get strapped into the chair, he was reported to say it would be the biggest thrill in his life, he made little if any attempt to defend himself in trying to convince the jury that he was, which was very possible,insane and ended up getting his wish. Fish at age 65 was executed in Sing Sing prison on the morning of January 16, 1936 being one of the oldest persons to be executed in New York State history. For all the crimes that Fish was reported to have committed, that included some half dozen murders, he was tried convicted and executed for the kidnap murder of 12 year-old Grace Budd, Lexi Ainwsorth. It was Fish himself who by sending an anonymous letter to Grace's parents admitting his crime that lead the police to track him down and finally put an end to his reign of terror.The film "The Gray Man" goes deep into Albert Fish's sick mind in showing how he as a young boy became fascinated with pain, that was inflicted on him at the orphanage he spent his early years in, and how that fascination, that lead to his purposely torturing himself, shaped his entire adult life. Fish also became some kind of religious fanatic who explained away his horrendous crimes in saving his victims, all young children, the pains of either being raped or corrupted in the future!Like most serial killer Fish,in him being in his 50's and 60's when he committed his crimes, came across as a both sweet and kindly old man to his intended victims, and their family members, that masked the real intentions that he had in store for them. It was Fish's own sense of invincibility, by getting away with his crimes for so long, that in the end did him in. It also took the efforts of New York City Police Detective Will King, Jack Conley, to track Fish down and finally bring him to justice.Det. King never gave up in trying to find little Grace Budd's murderer when everyone else did. Suffering a serious mental breakdown that landed him in the hospital for weeks Det. King still worked on the Grace Budd murder case, from his hospital bed, until he got the brake that he so long, for some six years, had waited for. And ironically that brake came from Albert Fish himself!