Capote is one of those actors' movies that seems written and conceived to let the performers shine. And shine they do in this tremendous drama that remains one of the best films of the decade. It doesn't hit a single wrong note.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman stars as the talented but troubled writer Truman Capote. After a family is brutally murdered in rural Kansas, Capote travels there to write an article for The New Yorker. When he decides to make his findings into a book, the famous non-fiction novel In Cold Blood is born.

Capote becomes especially close to one of the killers, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.), and has him convinced he's trying to save him, but Capote knows that if Smith and his accomplice don't die, he doesn't have a book.

Two people serve as his conscience. They are his childhood friend and research assistant Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) and his lover Jack Dunphy (Bruce Greenwood). When they smile at him, there is something sullen about them, as they know he's using Smith to juice up his book. Their unease is palpable.

Other characters Capote deals with include Bob Balaban as William Shawn, the editor of The New Yorker, dreaming of the big bucks that the book will generate and local Sheriff Alvin Dewey (the always excellent Chris Cooper), whose sole interest is to watch the killers hang.

There are some very striking visuals, especially at the beginning. Notice the road on which Harper Lee and Capote travel. Watch how they get fairly tight shots of the two characters just standing there in the middle of nowhere and then admire the effect when the camera backs off significantly. That's how in-the-middle-of-nowhere they really are.

Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of Capote is stunning. He doesn't play him as much as he IS him. Hoffman doesn't merely capture his voice and mannerisms perfectly, he channels his vibe.

Consider one of the film's earlier scenes, during which Capote is having a discussion with some people at a party. Watch the smugness, the arrogance of a man who just loves to hear the sound of his own voice as he recounts a talk with one of his author friends as he says: "Jimmy, your novel is about a Negro homosexual who's in love with a Jew. Wouldn't you call that a problem? And he just started laughing because he knew I was right." You're not just getting a joke, but an entire world of insight.

Catherine Keener is splendid as Harper Lee, a supporting part similar to many Hoffman himself would do (Almost Famous, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Boogie Nights, to name a few) before Capote truly got him accepted by Americans as one of their acting greats, not that he wasn't great before.

But the film, especially near the end, is Hoffman's moment. He is outstanding at letting the viewer feel Capote's pain as he's torn over the fact that he's in love with Perry Smith yet he needs him to die.

At 114 minutes, the film is just long enough. That's a huge compliment because it would have been so easy to just drag on for a few more scenes. Next thing you know, the film would have been thirty minutes too long. A trap neatly avoided indeed.

The film, Capote's story, validates the expression that says: "Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it." We see it at the end of the film when an emotionally-drained Capote stairs at the sky through a plane window, with an expression-less face that says more than any tear could. For all intents and purposes, when the executioner pulled the lever and Perry Smith died, Capote died along with him.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age