‘No Man of God’ | Tribeca ’21 | Movie Review

Ted Bundy has recently gotten a lot of attention from Hollywood. Zack Efron recently played him on Netflix and this just after Netflix released a full-length series about the killer. All of these looks at the murderer have been done from the perspective of either the victims of Bundy or through Bundy’s perspective himself. In ‘No Man of God’ that perspective is shifted to the complicated relationship that formed between the FBI analyst Bill Hagmaier (Elijah Wood) and serial killer Bundy during Bundy’s final years on death row.

Bundy (played by Luke Kirby) has uncharacteristically allowed Hagmaier to try to understand why Bundy kills, but what exactly is the reason behind letting his guard down? What will happen to Hagmaier the further down he dives into the mind of a serial killer, and will he himself begin to not only understand the killer in front of him but maybe even relate?

Elijah Woods is gripping. Luke Kirby is eerily consonant with the person he is portraying, his mannerisms and attention to detail might make his portrayal of Bundy the most identical. Any time these two actors are on screen there is some fairly crackling chemistry that makes the movie worth a watch.

The story itself is fairly similar to things we’ve seen done in a longer format like Netflix’s ‘Mindhunter’ where our protagonist is slowly spiraling into the madness the antagonist is weaving in front of them. Questioning someone’s morality if not given consequences for their actions what would they do and comparing that to murdering is a difficult sell for me personally, but it does make for compelling drama in this story.

Overall, I don’t think ‘No Man of God’ presented anything new to what we already know about Ted Bundy. The energy of the two leads will make it worth a watch but if you’ve seen one Ted Bundy film, you kinda know where they all end up. This journey though is worth a watch.