Boston Strangler

"Zodiac-lite."

"There is so little dramatic excitement to any of this. Where is the tension? Where is the suspense? Where is the macabre horror?"

"A spiritless affair."

"Smart and powerfully understated."

"There is a life-threatening lack of oomph in the picture. Carrie Coon is the only spark..."

"The movie... ends up coming across as vague and indistinct."

"A compelling true-crime throwback..."

"Writer-director Matt Ruskin has done a terrific job of creating a sense of space and place for his true-crime drama."

"One of my favorite Keira Knightley performances of all time."

"Knightley, Chris Cooper and Carrie Coon can’t fix a plodding, unfocused script."

"It’s frustrating that this immense, immersive true-crime story has been squeezed into a two-hour movie instead of a series..."

"It would help if we could trust this movie enough to believe what we’re being sold."

"Ruskin succeeds in paying tribute to Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole's hard work, but it's less successful in filling in the larger story."

"This thriller falls short of its influences yet carves out a small space of its own."

"Has almost everything you could possibly want from a sharp revisionist thriller."

"The reliance on the shot-through-a-dirty-fishtank look ultimately starts undercutting what is good about the movie: the work of its leads."

"The movie’s duller parts criticise the era’s sexism via a pat underdog arc... Yet the film still mostly works, thanks to Ruskin’s other angle: interrogating how the meaning of this story changes over time."

"Knightley, in a performance as crisp as the corners of an envelope, makes McLaughlin’s perseverance... deeply believable."

"Keira Knightley leads a strong cast... who all lend real watchability to this true crime tale even as its pendulous air and brooding soundtrack begin to get a little suffocating."

"It's not as good as Spotlight or Zodiac, but it's perfectly involving."