Method of Murder is a 2019 documentary about an author who jets off to LA and Las Vegas on a fact-finding mission to investigate murder weapons and more.
Fortunately, most of us don’t think all that much about murder. I mean, you’re thinking about it now, sure, but you get my point. For British author Jacky Rom, it’s a kind of obsession, at least for a short time as she thinks about plotting her next novel. She wants to make her killer be as authentic as possible and so decides to do a little investigating in coming up with the perfect crime. Deciding the process ought to be on film, she gets director Elliot Manarin to helm the production, following the charismatic writer as she heads to the states to get some ideas.
If you’ve seen any TV in the last twenty or more years, you know that committing crimes is a bad idea because those pesky CSI folks have all kinds of tech to root out even the most cleverest of bad guys. Hence Rom seeks to find a way to kill a person and dispose of the body that would be undetectable (she surely not the first). All kinds of things pop into her head, and with her story possibly set in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, she makes the trek across the Atlantic to talk with professional types about the pros, cons, and in and outs of dealing with death.
She visits quite the collection of people, from a tattooist, to an archer, to a weapon’s expert, to a lion whisperer, to a magician, to casino hotel staff, to a team of prosthetic makeup artists … she covers all the bases, searching for viable ways to end a life and keep it hidden. What’s so interesting about all this is in fact the people she talks with and the way they walk Rom through their chosen paths, she becoming a sort of special investigator herself.
Rom is on screen for most of the film, talking with us and her camera crew in a rather casual and intimate way, the film purposefully avoiding the more common tropes of a sit and speak interview film. Instead, we travel with her as she explores options for ending a life, doing as much as she can to experience each of these avenues, getting a tattoo, using a bow and arrow, shooting a firearm, learning a magic trick, and much more. It’s these hands-on moments with Rom that really give Method of Murder its kick as she details what it’s all like while trying to figure out if any of them could make her story work.
It’s all made on a small budget, the film lacking a big production feel, ending up more like a high quality home movie than something studio made. However, it’s that same personal sense of attachment that makes watching Rom so much fun, even if it all ends sort of out of left field (you’ll have to look up her publishing history to know what she decided to do). Either way, as a peek behind the curtain at several of the lifestyles she walks in on, it’s well worth a look, not to mention the efforts it takes in getting a novel done right. Recommended.