While this film is very powerful for those unfamiliar with the incident and/or the play, I think it loses quite a bit of the depth that the stage version has. The play is a sparkling piece of experimental theater that invariably is produced by small ensembles taking on six to ten roles each. The set is minimalist, usually containing no more than a few chairs and a table. When you take away the visuals, and you take away the famous actors, what are you left with? The words. I think that the movie version takes away from that, with the flashy camera angles and editing. The characters (as they became in the movie; they are more true-to-life in the play) were pretty well-portrayed in the movie, with some disappointing exceptions (Jedediah Schultz, for example). The story still gets through, and you still understand that this is an issue of enormous gravity. But I reiterate my opinion that the play is much better.
Review of The Laramie Project
