Thompson And Venables Have A Human Side? Right Oh!

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6563663/Devastating-offensive-James-Bulgers-father-blasts-Oscar-tipped-film.html
This Lambe Geezer wants to have good hard look at himself.
Lambe: "Mr Lambe said: 'I have enormous sympathy for the Bulger family and when I think about what they've been through it breaks my heart.'" - so much so he's going to put them through the ringer again! lowlife.

[Rockrose]

I thought you believed in free speech?
If you limit what can be made into films etc are you not limiting free speech?

[jackthehat]

They were 10 year old boys who did a very wicked thing. I cannot possibly know the pain Denise and Ralph Bulger have felt over the death of their little boy....and since.
However, I happen to agree with Mr Lambe's comments.

[naomi24]

If it breaks his heart I wonder why he felt compelled to make a 30 minute film that portrays the murderers in a sympathetic light?

[ToraToraTora]

yes RR, you can believe in free speech without having to agree with everything that is said me old china.

[ToraToraTora]

JTT: "They were 10 year old boys who did a very wicked thing." - in the case of Thompson perhaps that's the end of it but Venables is on about his third "new life" furnished by the state for various awful crimes.

[MallyJ]

Ooo name calling.....Whilst what those boys did was dreadful they were only 10 years old and had not had, from what I have read, the best of upbringings. Truelife stories of abduction and murder crop up on the tv and at cinemas regularly to very little comment...certainly not name calling of the director/producers..... People who think this is in bad taste do not have to see it...indeed if the population as a whole feel the same itwill be boycotted.....but I bet that doesn't happen

[kvalidir]

Since I've not seen the film I can't comment on whether it's 'sympathetic' or not but I suspect that it simply portrays the two offenders as what they actually were, two ten year old little boys who in at least one case had not had a great start in life. If you portray them as that then elements of it are bound to be considered 'sympathetic' because the whole thing from beginning to end was an utter tragedy.
I was introduced to someone else recently who had a film made about their father (and I by sheer dumb coincidence I had auditioned to play his mother- never been so glad I didn't get something) and he is absolutely cut up about that film, but he does recognise that a film is not a documentary and there are only so many themes you can pick up ( especially in a short film) and horrible though their experience is Jamie Bulger's parents have to respect the public's interest in this and the film maker's decision to not portray things purely from their angle. I do feel awfully sorry for them though.

[jackthehat]

Yes, Venables seems to be the more troubled of the two. And yet Thompson was generally believed to be the stronger-personality and blamed for instigating events.
Perhaps we need films like this to show that that wasn't the case and give insight into how these toxic friendships develop?

[gness]

I've worked with enough ten year olds to know that these two knew exactly what they were doing. They should have stayed in a supervised environment on a permanent basis.

I can't imagine the type of person who would want to make this film but doing so without speaking to the parents because he feared they wouldn't allow him tells me much. I hope this ends his career.

[naomi24]

Perhaps he thought such a controversial topic handled in a controversially sympathetic manner would afford him some considerable publicity, which it clearly has. I’d never heard of him until today, but if that was his purpose I hope I never hear of him again.

[sunny-dave]

There might (just possibly) be a case for making this film in about 60 years time when all the people who were involved are dead - although I'm not sure that it would serve any useful purpose even then.

The whole thing stinks of meretricious self-publicity on behalf of the film-maker - "If I make this contentious film then people will know who I am and my career is assured".

I hope it backfires in a spectacular way and he sinks without further trace.

I concur with others who have said (here and elsewhere) that the murderers knew exactly what they were doing and as such abdicated all rights to any normal life - for an 'artist' to seek to make money/reputation on the back of such evil is vile.

[Old_Geezer]

Bad taste to have made it, to be showing it, not so much to have seen or chosen not to see it.

[ChillDoubt]

Oddly, despite my often draconian stance in regards to murderers etc I do believe that they egged each other on to a degree and their upbringing played a part.
They were certainly demonised in the press with claims of horrors that simply hadn’t happened(I recall paint being poured into his eyes was one claim that was subsequently shown to be a fabrication).
I’m in no way justifying what they did, far from it, just trying to gain a little understanding.
Furthermore, don’t forget that despite the incomprehensible act they committed they were only just deemed fit for trial by virtue of age, whereby the judge decided on their criminal liability, if memory serves me correctly.
In the eyes of some they were still way short of the age where they assume full responsibility(14 years of age in this country).

[ChillDoubt]

Forgot to add that though I didn’t watch it, apparently the drama about Fred and Rose West(Responsible Adult was it?) was compulsive viewing, though I doubt the victims families found it such.

[kvalidir]

Indeed 'Helter Skelter' is about Charles Manson and Tarantino isdoing 'Once upon a time in Hollywood' about Manson again. I'm assuming out of deference for the way Roman Polanski and the other victims families might feel about it no-one will watch it? People make films about murders and horrific happenings where some of the people concerned are still alive all the time and no-one bats much of an eyelid, why is this different?

[ummmm]

It was this case that changed the law of criminal responsibility?

I have no sympathy, especially for Venebles, but I'm not convinced a 10 year old has the right mindset.

[Rockrose]

They also write books, I don’t remember such a outcry of Harold Shipman story, or Dennis Nielsen or Mary Bell

[-Talbot-]

Appropriate adult

[sunny-dave]

Unusually (and I apologise for it), I have to say that I think age is relevant here.

You do need to be over the age of about 40 to have adult memories of what went on at the time and how it scarred the national consciousness - in a way that Shipman and even West didn't.

It was just appalling - an order of magnitude worse than any other single act of evil in my lifetime - but it's quite understandable that younger people just don't have the emotional response that the older generation do.

[Rockrose]

Sorry SD totally disagree with you I’m horrified at what went on during the Vietnam war or the 2nd WW.
I think I have an ‘emotional response ‘ to such evil acts