Capote v. Infamous

Within a year, there were two movies that came out about the famous (or should I say infamous) Truman Capote. Both of these films revolve around the story behind how he wrote his most famous and last book, In Cold Blood. These films are Capote and Infamous.


Capote is the more famous one, having been nominated and won several awards. The tone of the film is much more dramatic and intense than that of Infamous, which is good. These events that take place are not fun loving, goofy little scenarios. They are important and should be taken seriously. That is where Infamous goes off the deep end. Everything seems to be a joke and Douglas McGrath (the director) takes every opportunity to make the audience laugh, even when he shouldn’t.

Now the acting was quite good for each of these movies. I dislike Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) with a fiery passion. He is a terrible actor who can never correctly portray the characters well. Toby Jones (Infamous), however, is a fantastic actor who I always have enjoyed watching him, whether it be Amazing Grace, The Painted Veil, or The Old Curiosity Shop, he has never disappointed me. The descriptions of these actors have one exception, their own respective Truman Capote performance. Hoffman is AMAZING as Truman and deserved any of the awards he received for it, and Toby Jones performance was good, but I did not believe that I saw Truman Capote, just some gay man that was trying to write some novel.

The rest of the cast for both of these films were tremendous, especially the supporting cast for Infamous. Sigourney Weaver, Juliet Stevenson, Jeff Daniels, and Sandra Bullock all were great in their portrayals of these people. Other than Toby Jones, Daniel Craig is the only actor that I can pick out every actor in that movie and say was bad (which is sad because I normally like him). In Capote, I only know three of the other actors besides Hoffman and all three are good: Catherine Keener (who is as good as Sandra Bullock in the role of Nelle Harper Lee), Chris Cooper (better than Jeff Daniels as Alvin Dewey, the investigator of the crime), and Bruce Greenwood (who is great but I do not know who played his character in Infamous).

Over all, Capote was the surprising better of the two. Infamous has a great cast and a great director, but not all are at the top of their game. Capote is where this story stands on its own two feet in acting, screenwriting, and editing.

Capote: 4 stars/Infamous: 3 stars

Later this week: Jeff Bridges v. Jeff Bridges v. Jeff Bridges and The Tourist.