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Once again, Clint Eastwood demonstrates why he is one of the best directors of our era. The film is and involves a very disturbing subject matter, but it is one of the best pictures of the year, and it will probably be up for some Oscars.

Los Angeles area, 1928. Based on the true story of "The Chicken Coop Murders", the story revolves around a serial killer and child abuser who killed 20 boys at a ranch in Wineville, CA (Now Mira Loma), about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. The story, that at the time was national headlines, was allmost lost until a contact that the screenwriter knows at LA City Hall called him about "An incredible story" that was about to be destoyed.

Angelina Jolie plays "Christine Collins" in one of her best roles ever. Her 1920's character in the movie does not even look like her. She works for Pacific Telephone & Telegraph as a supervisor when phone calls were all analog, and operators did all the work manually.

She goes to work one morning, and returns to find her 9 year old son, Walter (Gattlin Griffith) missing. This was in the era of "We will not even take your call until the kid has been missing 24 hours", woman had no rights and were disrespected by men, and the LAPD were just as corrupt as their counterparts in Chicago and NYC.

The LAPD, under intense pressure to solve the case to divert itself from the corruption issues, finds a boy in Illinois that claims he is Walter. (It was later determined the boy made his entire story up to come to CA and visit his favorite cowboy movie star). At a reunion put together by LAPD, she immediately tells the captain (Jeffery Donovan) that this boy is not her son. But he bullies Christine into keeping the boy "For a trial period". Three weeks later, she comes back to the LAPD Captain with dental records, height measurements, and a school teacher who all confirm the boy is not Walter.

Big city Police Departments in those days had incredible power, and the captain and his cheif have Christine locked up in a mental ward for "Failure to recognize her own son". She meets another woman inside with a simular situation, and discovers these woman are called "Code 12" - basically they had the courage in one way or another to go against the police, and they are placed into institutions just by the word of the PD. It was this case that changed the laws nationwide where most people now cannot be commited without a warrent.

The womans case is taken up by a minister (John Malkovich) who has a weekly radio show that is not only sermon, but an expose on the corrupt LAPD. She is also helped by a rare "Good Cop" (Michael Kelly), who is called out to the Wineville Ranch to investigate a child missing case from Canada. He finds and takes into custody a 15 year old boy, who turns out to be the cousin of the killer (Jason Hamner as Gorden Northcott).

He breaks down in the interview with Lester (Kelly) and tells him he was forced by his uncle to help kill, torture, and abuse at least 20 boys. He is shown pictures of missing boys, and identifies one of them as Walter.

The LAPD still tries to cover up the case, but with the help of the cop and the minister, Christine Collins is released from the Asylum and the suspect  is caught in Canada. He was found guilty and was executed by hanging 2 years later.

The LA city counsel held hearings on the case, and the laws were changed to protect the victims of crime, and to hopefully end police coruption.

The cinematography and score are incredible - you really feel like you are in 1928 LA. The film was produced by Ron Howard, and the Clint - Ron team is excellent on this one. Grade: A

Epitaph: Cristine Collins drifted into obscurity in 1941, still trying to collect her settlement from the LAPD and its Captain. The little boy who faked that he was Walter came forward in 1935 and ammitted everything, and he issued an apology to both Collins and "The State of California". It turned out the killer's mom, who was living on the ranch with her son, admitted to killing Walter. She served 15 years in Prison. It was later revealed that she was not the killer's Mom after all - she was the Grandmother. It turned out the killer was born in incest when the Grandmothers husband had sex with his daughter. The LAPD Captain and his Cheif, who were recommended to be fired by the LA city council, were later re-instated.