Chris Flackett
Biopics are tricky things to successfully pull off. Too much creative leeway and claims of understanding what their subjects are thinking can lead to accusations of using too much creative licence. On the other hand, if a biopic sticks too closely to the basic beats of the story, it risks a lack of depth, certainly a lack of tension or narrative development. Mike Ott’s biopic of American domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh unfortunately falls in the latter category with hints of the former.
The story of who Timothy McVeigh was and the horrific act he committed is well known; I won’t dwell on it here, other than to say if you’re not aware of McVeigh and his crimes, you can read about it here. What I will say is, if faced with a biopic of McVeigh, you would perhaps want that movie to at least dig into the reasons and psychology behind his act of terrorism. What was driving him? How did things get so unspeakably awful?
McVeigh does not do this, other than McVeigh selling pro-gun car stickers at conventions, and an implied racism when an annoyed McVeigh (Alfie Allen) follows a black person he’s seen in a bar to a car park where he contemplates shooting the man. That is admittedly an unnerving moment, but it’s too far and few between. The film never really tells us why McVeigh did what he did, never mind probing that further to really explore these motivations. McVeigh wants to keep an arms-length distance from its subject in an attempt to be objective, which I can appreciate, but it does nothing of merit with that objectivity. It’s too unsure of what it wants from its subject, and so ultimately, it does nothing but simply observe the basics.
At an extremely methodical pace, we follow McVeigh in the last few months before the Oklahoma bombing as he goes to gun conventions selling his- pro-gun stickers, starts up a relationship with a woman that ends as quickly as it starts when he shouts at her, visits a Neo-nazi commune but seems to quickly leaves when he realises what the commune really is, buys and stores explosives for use in his attack, and then drives off to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. There’s no tension or depth, other than the tension of waiting for the inevitable climax to occur. It betrays a sense of not wanting to get to grips with its subject, precisely at a time when the political climate justifies a piercing examination of right-wing political attitudes, fringe groups, and extremism. It’s a complete missed opportunity.
Perhaps the most contentious part of the film, where it overreaches its creative licence, are scenes showing McVeigh visiting the American white supremacist Richard Snell in prison. There were claims, that have never been substantiated, that Snell and McVeigh were acquainted. A large part of this comes from Snell having previous desires to bomb the Oklahoma City building, as well as predicting a bomb would go off on the day he was executed on Death Row, the date of which, coincidentally or not, was the day McVeigh committed his own Oklahoma bombing.
Although a relationship was unsubstantiated, McVeigh not only has the two meet at prison visits, but has Snell acting as a kind of mentor figure, one McVeigh returns to again and again for acknowledgement. Not only is this historically dubious (McVeigh was quoted as saying the Waco siege was the trigger that spurned him into action), but it suggests that the film makers found it easier to suggest McVeigh was kind of led astray by a person who emotionally dominated him, rather than having to explore Waco and the issues and surrounding that incident.
Ultimately, perhaps some events are just too large, too traumatic, too substantial to be contained and represented in a film. Notably, the film ends with a montage of actual news footage from the Oklahoma bombing, letting the horror of what took place speak for itself. It may have been a budgetary choice for McVeigh, but it’s also the most compelling, and harrowing, moment in the entire film.
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