Challenging (2008)

Challenging will probably grab a best director Oscar nomination if not Best Picture as well. This is a very good and racist picture that almost all credit goes to the director, Clint Eastwood.

Why racist? Because this movie is set in Los Angeles in 1928 and it is an all white cast. Los Angeles at the time had very high populations of Mexican-Americans and Chinese Americans. There is never a Chinese person shown once, and only time you see a hispanic is in police custody. There was a white influx into California after the Dust-Bowl and the Great Depression, but this movie predates that.

I doubt that most people will notice this but they should. As a true story, there should have been more of an effort to get the details right. There are many inaccuracies, such as showing Union Station and Los Angeles city hall when these structures were built in the 1930's. Not to mentions that these locations were built on Chinese neighborhoods and what was old Mexico at the time. This is where Charlie Chaplin filmed most of his early work.

The movie tells a story of a mother, Christine Collins played by Angelina Jolie, who son goes missing. Collins is a single mother. The LAPD brings a child a few months later that is not her child. They convince her that she is wrong, but that doesn't last for long. At the same the police are finding out about horrible crime that would be later know as the Wineville Chicken Coup murders.

The Wineville Chicken Coup murders was a heinous murder of young boys. Twenty boys were murdered, molested, killed and chopped up by a young man who would search for boys to kidnaped off the streets. The police stumbled on it when they picked up a kid who was wanted for being in the country illegally from Canada. He confessed, and his uncle was picked by Canadian law enforcement for the murders.

One of the boys who was said to be one of those killed was Walter Collins, the son of Christine Collins.

Interesting enough, Wineville has since changed its name to Mira Lomba, which is town over from where my Grandfather grew up. He was eight years old at the time. I told him, it was lucky that he wasn't picked up by this murderer. My grandfather failed to see any humor in that.

The movie goes further to tell the story of Christine Collins battle with the LAPD. By not accepting that the boy was hers the police put her in a mental institution, which was a common practice of the LAPD at the time, to commit women who challenged them.

Collins is helped by preacher played by John Malkovich, who is on a crusade to expose the LAPD for its abuses of power.

The movie takes us in the court room drama of two trails. One of the LAPD and the other of the murderer.

What the movie does best is to keep the audience involved in every scene. All the emotions are squeezed out of every scene. Every situation is rich, tense, and rewarding in its outcome no matter how horrible it is.

The director and writer do a very good job at exposing how people are manipulated and coerced. Christine Collins has one thing she wants, she wants her son back. Everyone can understand that. The LAPD detective twists and recasts that into every plausible situation to discredit her. It is so real and I have seen it so many offices. This part of the movie can be studied to understand this phenomena.

Angelina Jolie is interesting her. She makes you uncomfortable. There is something about her that does that. It keeps you awake and interested. The only time you feel you are seeing her as a real person is when she is going crazy at the asylum. She seems to have a hard time playing normal. She seems to be good in movies with a strong director and a strong cast, so that movie to goes on around her. Then her air of instability works to give the movie an edge. Tom Cruise does something similar.

If you see this film, remember that it is very long and emotionally draining.