Karla [2006]

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-10-27 rating:
Karla - a joke.
As a true crime buff, I was reluctant to try this movie as I knew it would never reach the places I wanted it to. As with so many films based on real events, 'Karla' seriously struggles to find it's footing between fiction and reality. Depictions of the actual crimes that took place at the hands of Bernardo and Homolka could surely never be shown, but they could at least be referred to or outlined, or even mentioned. Instead, they are merely glossed over. For anyone familiar with the case, this film will be a disappointment - the facts of the case are ignored in favour of painting a favourable picture of Homolka. I am not suprised the families of the victims would have a problem with this film, mainly because, as with many of the books that have been written, Karla is portrayed as being a victim, not a killer.

If we were to go by this film, we would have to believe that Paul Bernardo forced Karla Homolka into the acts of rape and murder - this film all but has him pointing a gun at her head. The fact that Karla raped her sister is ignored, as is her rape and torture of their 2 other victims. 'Jane Doe', their only known living victim and Homolka's wedding gift to Bernardo, in which they drug, rape and sodomize her, is also left out. I'm not saying I want to see these acts take place but if this is supposed to be a film about actual events, shouldn't they at least have some part? We NEVER see Karla take part in any of the crimes - she just stands there crying and looking horrified.

What we are left with instead is a true slap in the face to the families of the victims - its the 'poor Karla' show. She is portrayed as sweet, innocent, naive and a victim. In this version of events, Karla is just as much a victim - she's nice to the girls and cries when Bernardo wants to hurt them. At one point she even has a sit down with one of the girls to compare notes on Bernardo and what an abuser he is. She gives the same girl a teddy bear. Understandably, this movie wants to look at the crimes as a whole, not go into the gory detail of each, but the picture painted is all wrong.

Instead of focusing on the really interesting elements - the trial, Karla's 'devil deal', the revelation of the tapes, - this film spends a lot of time focusing on Karla's parole board interview, which did take place. But the interview we see is all through Karla's point of view - and it's more of the 'poor Karla' show - he made me do it, and so on and so on. I was left with the impression that the writer's/director wanted to incite an emotional connection between the viewer and Karla, which they succeeded in doing - if I had not known the case prior to viewing, I would have felt very sympathetic towards her, precisley because the truely horrific nature of her involvement in the crimes was never shown.

With a tag line like 'Evil has a beautiful face', I had hoped for an accurate dramatisation of events. Instead they should have opted for 'We think she's innocent'.

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review by: leacam2003 date: 2008-03-12 rating:
Good but disappointing
I watched this thinking that it would be a great film but I found the poor production quality distracting from the overaell feel of the film and that the sequence of events were dragged out for too long and it wasn't as grissly as I had anticipated.
Overall, I thought it was your typical low-budget film, not highly recommended.

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review by: Chiclanero date: 2008-01-24 rating:
A brutally honest film - exceptional all round.
If like some "Top ? Reviewers" I take 50 or more lines to tell you everything that happens in the film, why buy it?? Suffice to say, Paul Bernado played by Misha Collins and Karla his wife played by Laura Prepon are the 2 leads in this true story set in Canada. Bernado is an extremely violent,womaniser who has mood swings and beats his wife relentlessly,added to this he is obsessed with sex.She in turn is obsessed with him, puts up with the treatment he dishes out,follows his every command and initially she covers up his crimes when he admits carrying out rapes then willingly assists him as an accomplice rather than "turn him in or lose or leave him" as a normal person would and they turn to Kidnap,Rape and Murder.In the end arrest is unavoidable and their trial follows.............


review by: s.vernon date: 2007-09-05 rating:
NOT AS GRATUITOUS AS SOME MAKE IT OUT TO BE
Paul Bernardo is a monster. There is no other way to look at it. He is sadistic, inhumane, despicable, demented and someone who should be tortured every day of his life for what he did to his victims, the ones we know about and the ones we don't. His sidekick Karla Holmolka, is just as evil. According to her, she was a willing participant in the crimes, but did not kill anyone. That doesn't make her much better of a person, but one can look at her circumstance and at least say that she wasn't quite as cold as he was.

For those who don't know, Paul Bernardo and Karla Holmolka were two beautiful, young Canadians from the Niagara Falls area who were convicted of raping, torturing and dismembering two of their three victims in the early 90's. Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy are the two young high school girls that they kidnapped and dehumanized and then Tammy Holmolka was Karla's little sister who was drugged and then raped and then died of an apparent overdose. This story gripped Ontario and the rest of Canada for months in the early part of the 1990's. Paul Bernardo also became known as the Scarborough rapist and was convicted of some of those crimes as well. Holmolka finally turned on Bernardo when he beat her one too many times and she cut herself a nice little deal to serve only twelve years for her part of the crime. That is the Bernardo/Holmolka case in a nutshell.

Here in Canada, this film has been protested and considered blasphemous towards the memories of French and Mahaffy. While I agree that it must be difficult for the families to relive the memories, I have to say that I believe in freedom of speech and that this film is important in it's own right. It is a sanitized but accurate retelling of the story that shocked Canadians and others around the world that followed it. I have followed the case with great interest since it happened and to see it on big screen was not only disturbing, it was like reliving a nightmare all over again. Does that mean it should be banned because the families don't want it on screen? The answer to that is a resounding NO!

The strength of the film is the performance by Laura Prepon as Karla Holmolka. She seems to embody what Holmolka could have been like. She is attractive and evil all rolled into a salacious yet deviously disgusting débutante. The weakness of the film is that this is told from Holmolka's point of view. She begins to tell her story to the prison psychiatrist and of course what we get is her recollection of what happened. Is this the truth or is it just a fabrication to protect her already destroyed reputation? I look at it as being a 100% and unequivocal lie and a unforgivable plea for forgiveness. Holmolka a victim here? Hardly to the extent that she perpetuates herself to be. The evidence dictates that some of the crimes against the victims were crimes of jealousy, such as hair being cut off and so on. This was premeditated, psychosomatic, disturbing and most of all violent.

I guess I shouldn't be here to digress into the case, this is after all a movie review, but it is hard to review the film without a passionate response to memories of the past.

The film makers do a very commendable job of not going into soft core kiddie porn by keeping the killings off screen and the rapes to the youngsters also off screen. I give them full marks for not showing what truly happened as the Bernardo you see on screen is monster enough without showing what he truly did (google his name and his true crimes and actions will surface).

I am glad a film that tells this story is out there. Like we say about Remembrance Day, Lest We Forget. I know these crimes will never be forgotten here in Canada, but now we have a film that shows us that monsters are not just in fantasy and horror films, they live right next door to you and you might just say hi to them every day. And because this is a landmark case in Canadian judicial history, a film like this doesn't come across as sensational, it comes across as necessary.

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