One of my all time favorites.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

The Hunt for the BTK Killer (the initials BTK stand for serial killer Dennis Rader's monogram Bind, Torture and Kill), which Rader signed on most of the taunting communications he sent to the police and various media outlets over a 30 year period. This made for TV movie is based on the true account of Dennis Rader, a serial killer from Witchita, Kansas. He was responsible for the murder of at least 10 people over the 17 year period between 1974 and 1991. Rader then somehow stopped his murderous ways for more than 13 years. It is believed that he took exception to a television show narrated by David Lohr on Court TV on the BTK killer, and also to writer/lawyer Robert Beattie's book released in 2005. Rader said that he chose to resurface in 2004 because he wanted his story to be told by himself. Gregg Henry's performance as serial killer Dennis Rader was uncanny. I recall first watching Gregg Henry as a young actor as Wesley Jordache in the 1976 mini-series Rich Man Poor Man. From that first performance on the small screen he has went on to an endless and varied stream of television and big screen performances. The lead investigator Detective Jason Magida was played by one of my favorite actors Robert Forster (best known for Jackie Brown).This story is outlined in a quasi documentary style that commences with the actual arrest of Dennis Rader in his vehicle. The movie then takes us through some of the actual events and Rader's murders, as narrated through the interrogation of Dennis Rader when he was first arrested.What this movie does well is it outlines how Dennis Rader was able to elude capture for so long (over 30 years) as his murders were sporadic, and then he just simply stopped killing and sending any further taunting communications signed BTK. Gregg Henry looked and acted quite similar to the real serial killer Dennis Rader. The movie may not appeal to all movie enthusiasts as it focuses more on the events surrounding how Dennis Rader was actually captured. I would say that his capture was a combination of sound police work, and Dennis Rader's ego not willing to let anyone else glean any notoriety due to his infamy, which forced him to come out again and start taunting police. What he did not realize was that over the past 13 years when his killings had stopped, the world of technology was advancing rapidly and the police sciences were also ahead of the criminal curve.This TV movie provides insight in to the mental instability of serial killer Dennis Rader and his intense need for acknowledgement through the media for his murderous crimes known under the monogram as the elusive BTK serial killer. His actual court "matter of fact" confession is still available today on youtube for those of you that are interested in evaluating Gregg Henry's uncanny portrayal of Dennis Rader. Rader's court confession is told as if he were making dinner or calmly putting on his coat, not outlined as the actuality of his having sexual fantasies of killing people and then living out his fantasies by plotting and then committing these heinous crimes. On closing, Dennis Rader tells the police and the judge that there were many people who are very lucky to be alive today due to unforeseen circumstances that did not allow him to execute some of the murders that he had planned.

As a TV movie it had a lot more potential to bring it as a film. For example they could have chosen not to start in the beginning revealing who the serial killer is. But they did, and the rest of the movie is in fact set up like documentary. It tells the story from the view of the serial killer and a part from the police side with a little part of how the investigation was done.That's why I would not call this one a movie, because it isn't. And if it is, then it's a bad movie, without suspense in it. No real action, only a storyboard.However, if one is interested in serial killers en one likes documentary's or life story's about them, this is one of the better I've seen. Luckely I belong to the persons who are interested in the ways of thinking and acting of a serial killer and why they become them etc. So I've seen it completely.But due to the fact that it's called "film" and not "documentary" it got a 3 from me. Was it called documentary it would have gotten an 8.

While the Variety reviewer did not liked this version of the BTK story, I found it to be a good, but not exciting, movie. The lead investigator does the role with almost a Jack Webb approach and his narration is also reminiscent of Webb. The movie spends relative little time rehashing the murders and focuses on the actual hunt and capture. It also features Gregg Heny as Dennis Rader and plays the role well, especially as he resembles, through makeup, the killer. It is his chilling take on the killer that makes this movie worth watching. The movie combines characters and simplifies the events, but stays, mostly on track with the actual events.

It doesn't present anything that we haven't seen in a gazillion movies with the same premise of serial killers and slasher flicks, but it was OK TV movie.This movie is about the BTK killer who like the Zodiac Killer, Son of Sam terrorized a community in Kansas with his own reign as a warped killer. Actually he's not that warped, Dennis Rader as portrayed in the movie was Presiden of the Lutheran Church was actually a Greg Henry portraying the killer Dennis Rader is actually very good, damn he almost looks like the guy with that makeup applied. Henry though has played enough killers in his time to probably do this type of role without breaking a sweat.The movie then chronicles how he taunted and fooled the police for thirty years sending them cryptic messages and watching them idiotically trying to put clues together. Despite Robert Forsters's portrayal of a cop "hot on his trail", the scent is very cold, and really if anything the cops in the movie are incompetent , dimwits who have the luxury of having a vital clue fall in their lap done by an over cocky Rader ( a floppy disk).Still this is an OK TV movie. They even have a psychiatrist at one point trying to explain the killer's state of mind but really any "theories" about the guy failed to produce any concrete leads until the killer himself made a crucial error of ego.Overall though the acting was good, and it shows how the so called "normal" looking guy and allegedly good upstanding citizen can be that hidden serial killer who nobody suspects because of their misconceptions about what a killer is supposed to be.Good movie.