It isn't that child abuse and serial killings are exclusively found in one class-related life style than another it's just that they tend to be concentrated there. Certain kinds of social pathology have a tendency to show up more often in particular sectors of social space. The logical fallacy here is known as "post hoc ergo propter hoc" - after this, therefore because of this. "There is some indication that she was raped as a child by both her brother and step-father," intones a cop. The script tries to explain her serial killings (and all her other less lethal offenses since she was thirteen) by using what's come to be called the abuse excuse. Aileen Wuornos must have been an interesting character. When one investigator shouts at the others, something like, "What if she shoots somebody else while we're waiting around? How would you feel about that!", it's a bit hard to swallow - the notion that an experienced and hardened homicide investigator is going to talk like some guy in a Gestalt group therapy session - although it's the kind of line that might come readily to a scriptwriter working hurriedly and drawing on his own background. Of course a lot of the dialogue needed to be invented, and the script is weak here and there. Like Dirty Harry having a chat with his colleagues in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. Locations are put to good use, although seeing a meeting of the head detectives take place on an inviting beachfront plaza is a bit disconcerting and suggests a kind of forced use of the scenery. The director moves the bodies around in front of the camera efficiently. The chief investigator - Tim Grimm? - is usually a heavy, and here he looks better than he acts. It's as if she'd once been bruised all over her face and body and has now just about, but not quite, healed. Jean Smart has just about the proper appearance, and is of the right age, to be Aileen Wuornos. This is a competent made-for-TV movie, about average, maybe an iota above that.
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