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Charming Billy

1998, Movie, NR, 80 mins

Charming Billy: Review

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A stark and ambitious drama that, like THE WHISPERERS or TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL, is most notable for a central performance: As the tightly wound, pigeon-holed loser Billy Starkman, Broadway and TV actor Michael Hayden makes an unforgettable film debut. From childhood, Billy Starkman (Adam Tanguay) has lived in a pressure cooker of anxiety over shortcomings are largely of his own making. When his beloved older brother dies, Billy adopts his name but not his carefree spirit; Billy lives in a vacuum formed by his sibling's demise. A few years later, when a caring neighbor lady keels over while hanging her sheets in the yard, Billy blames himself for scaring her to death during a childhood game of "Boo!" Additionally traumatized by his parent's bickering, Billy grows up without the inner resources he needs to reach his potential. Billy (Hayden) drops out of college and takes a job as a laundry delivery man because he enjoys the sterile, undemanding nature of the position. Concerned with behaving normally, but capable only of imitating intimacy, Billy loses his virginity at age 25 and marries a woman who demands to have children. Billy takes a second dead-end job at a video store, but can't handle the financial pressure of marriage or the responsibility of impending parenthood. When his supportive grandfather has a stroke, Billy reaches the breaking point: Driven by feelings of rage and inadequacy, Billy kills his wife and children and climbs a water tower, from which he takes aim at strangers. Apparently inspired by the 1966 case of Texas Tower sniper Charles Whitman, this film succinctly zeroes in on the psychology of the spree killer. If the unraveling of Billy's self-loathing is inevitably a little monotonous, Hayden's tour de force performance grips viewers and makes his rampage comprehensible. leave a comment --Robert Pardi
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