HBO tells the story of Russia's "Red Ripper." Stephen Rea stars as detective Lieutenant Burakov, promoted from Forensics after eight butchered corpses are delivered to him in one night. Donald Sutherland is a helpful militia colonel, and Joss Acklund is the high-ranking communist official who scoffs at the idea that a serial killer is on the loose. "Serial killers are a decadent Western phenomenon!" (Nice going, Doofus, it's that sort of thinking that allowed Andrei Chikatilo to slaughter people for so long.) Max Von Sydow gives another outstanding performance as the one psychiatrist who decides to assist Burakov. The film studies the toll taken on Burakov as the years slip by and the killing goes on; Rea's excellent work here demonstrates that he's too good for the likes of THE CRYING GAME. Chikatiloeasily Jeffrey DeMunn's creepiest roleis snagged by police early on but let loose due to an error in DNA testing. He's especially prone to homicide after trouble on the job or failure to please his wife in the sackand Chikatilo is such a screw-up, this happens quite often. The murders themselves are fairly restrained but to actually show Chikatilo molesting, eviscerating and mutilating his victimsmostly boys and girls under the age of 17would have precluded this movie being shown on pay cable even in the mid-1990s. There are numerous shots of decomposed corpses, uncovered by everything from farm equipment to people making pit-stops in the worst possible places. What happens to Chikatilo at the end of CITIZEN X should be done to serial killers everywhere. Case Closed.
Review of Citizen X
