PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 6/1/07)

"Acid Thrower Blinds Girl" read the 1959 headline to the twisted scandal that begat this Sundance documentary hit, in which Bronx lawyer and nightclub owner Burt Pugach hired two goons to toss lye in the eyes of young Linda Riss, disfiguring her Sophia Loren–like beauty forever. Pugach was (and still is) obsessed with Riss, who had rejected their budding courtship after discovering he was married and faked his own divorce decree. Stalking soon ensued until that horrific crime of passion landed Pugach — who made a mockery of the trial by defending himself and trying to sue the judge and jury — in prison for 14 years. Then, in 1974, despite his legally sane but undeniably demented behavior, Riss agreed to the newly paroled Pugach's on-air marriage proposals. They've been a bickering twosome ever since. Only in New York, right?

Directed with little flair, a one-sided perspective and a questionable sense of moral responsibility by Dan Klores (his negligent lack of an editorial voice in the couple's lunacy reeks of train-wreck exploitation), Crazy Love is a disturbingly captivating tabloid horror, but that's not Klores' doing. Like far too many documentaries today, this formulaic kitsch-fest rests on the strengths of its subject matter to avoid having to present artful or deep filmmaking. Talking heads are a necessary evil, but aesthetically, Crazy Love demands we call a moratorium on the new wave of pop-doc clichés: Literal-minded music cues don't get much tackier than hearing Elvis croon "you blind my morning sky;" the "Ken Burns effect" of still-photo panning lost its inventiveness when it appeared as an option within the film-editing software that comes with all Mac computers; and the vintage stock footage used to evoke bygone eras feels like an obligatory cheat. Sure, the film's pace clips along to make each strange step in Burt and Linda's journey as shocking as if it were a narrative psychodrama, but why not try to tackle the questions it raises about codependency, obsession, liberation, or media sensationalism? Especially that last one, as Crazy Love seems oblivious to the fact that it's essentially a gonzo human-interest news feature.

— Aaron Hillis