Critic’s Choice: ‘Blue Caprice’

It was both eerie and gripping to watch the smart new true-crime drama “Blue Caprice” just days after the shooting rampage at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Loosely based on the 2002 Beltway shootings — 13 killed or injured by sniper fire — director Alexandre Moors’ stylish first feature unfolds like a procedural. Yellow crime tape and draped bodies to start, then a shift to dissect the criminal minds, rather than the crime. An alliance between 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo and angry ex-soldier John Allen Muhammad proved deadly. In examining the humans behind the horrific, the film is unsettling, but illuminating. The grainy texture of the imagery is darkly arresting. Isaiah Washington is charismatic and fearsome, channeling a toxic mix of compassion and rage. Tequan Richmond is haunting as the wounded psyche weathering it. But the filmmaker is the one to watch.