Have you ever wanted to watch a true-crime mockumentary that felt like it was hosted by Abbott and Costello but BOTH of them are Costello?  If your answer is yes to that VERY specific question, then boy, do I have the movie for you. I am a sucker for found footage/mockumentary films and I never say no to watching one but it’s hard to make something you’ve never seen before in such an overused genre. Somehow, Stuart Stone and Adam Rodness did it with FAKING A MURDERER.

FAKING A MURDERER follows two aspiring filmmakers, Adam and Stu, as they follow a hunch that some guy posting videos is a murderer. They pitch their idea to Breakthrough Entertainment and get the greenlight and a budget but these two are in over their heads in trying to find this guy and trying to budget their production. With almost no evidence of any foul play, they start a manhunt to find this guy and prove that he is the next big serial killer. With the help of a private detective, they locate their target but what they find isn’t what they expected. With their whole production and livelihoods on the line, what are two aspiring filmmakers to do?

I will be honest. I was bored as hell for the first 45 minutes. Almost an hour of the runtime was watching two bumbling yahoos try and get funding for their film, and then act like they know what they’re doing. But once the action starts, it rolls really solidly until the end with both action and comedy. It was just one garbage fire after another in the most entertaining way. Truly, FAKING A MURDERER could have been cut down into a short film (on the longer side) and it would have worked even better.

So many mockumentary films feel the same but Adam and Stuart somehow made something where the twists and turns didn’t feel hokey, probably because most of the intense action came at you at 100 mph in the last 15 minutes of the film. Is FAKING A MURDERER something I would recommend to people? Yes and also no. I would recommend watching the first ten minutes and then skipping to minute 45 and resuming from there. You will get all of the information you would need and skip the fluff to make it a full-length movie. When this film is good, it’s really good but it takes its sweet time to get to that point.

If you are ready and willing to chug-chug-a-chug your way through nearly an hour of puffed-up information similar to a college paper on a subject you BARELY studied, it’s worth it to get to the gooey center at the end of the film. All in all, I would recommend watching FAKING A MURDERER, just have that 10-second skip button handy.

FAKING A MURDERER will be available on Video On Demand and Digital on August 6, 2021.