text: I had heard that this film was stylish and intriguing, but I just found it annoying. It's been a while since I've seen it (and hopefully I won't find out all my memories are wrong and I'm unjustly condemning this movie), but my memory is that the filmmakers tried to portray Leopold and Loeb as victimized by an anti-gay society, and that this somehow caused their horrible crime. I totally disagree with this point of view, and think it's unfair both to homosexuals and to Bobby Franks, the real victim of the story. I can't imagine why anyone would want to claim those two as martyrs. I also thought L&L were portrayed as a bit more sophisticated than they actually were--after all, they were teenagers who lived at home. The film places them in a kind of fantasy world that seems like it should be scored by Morrissey.<br /><br />I just read an interview with one of the filmmakers that implied the film's anachronisms, such as the push-button phones that characters used, were meant "to add Brechtian distance". They certainly do that, but I happened to find it highly irksome.<br /><br />Apparently a number of people found this movie interesting, but I would have preferred a less "stylish" and more realistic examination of the part homosexuality may have played in the Leopold & Loeb case.