'Capote' (R)(out of four)

"Capote" is every bit as ruthless a film as Truman Capote was a journalist. It is an experience that pushes the edges of ethics to the breaking point, tearing down its supposed "hero" just as Capote tore down his subjects in the making of his landmark book, "In Cold Blood."

The novel, Capote's last and most acclaimed, was made into a movie once before in 1967. That film focused more on the story Capote was documenting, while "Capote" focuses more on the man himself -- a story of a brilliant journalist and a flawed man, torn between his responsibilities in each role. In some ways, "Capote" is a story of triumph, in other ways it is one tragedy, but interpretation aside, it is most certainly a story about a man testing his own limits, both surprised and disturbed by how far he can go.

That test begins innocently enough. Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a writer for New Yorker magazine, is perusing the Sunday New York Times when he sees a small story about the murder of a rural Kansas family on their farm. There's an element of terror to the tale, of evil menacing the innocent farm community, and he and his assistant, Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener) of "To Kill A Mockingbird" fame, head down to Kansas to get a better picture of what's happening and how the community is responding.

Capote lands in the Midwest with an air of celebrity around him. He is flamboyant and eccentric, clearly the big-city fish in this small-town pond, the writer of such acclaimed works as "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Accordingly, some residents fawn over his arrival while others despise him, thinking he has arrived to exploit these people for his fame.

Pointedly enough, the film suggests those skeptics may have been correct.

Capote befriends the town's women who like his work. He uses the wife of the town's sheriff to get closer to him. He seeks interviews with those who knew the victims. And when arrests are finally made, he's right there, trying to understand who these two arrested men are and why they did what they did.

Gradually he comes to interview these men in prison, growing closer to Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and even helping Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) recuperate from a hunger strike. He finds them proper lawyers to fight their charges and the death penalty. But soon he comes to realize that for his book to work, he must get beneath the surface and force Perry and Richard to lower their guard. And since he will need an ending, Capote eventually stops finding the two attorneys to appeal the verdict.

"Capote" pointedly challenges the author's intent. Is he right to pursue this story that helped millions to come to understand these "monsters?" Or was he wrong in exploiting these doomed lives for his own personal fame?

More importantly, was he in it for the story, or for the attention?

These are questions that still remain without answers, and "Capote" is less a tribute, memorial or re-enactment than a reframing of a discussion. Perhaps more interesting than this story of farmhouse killings and scared death row inmates is this flawed writer who lost himself in his work and -- given his future alcoholism and premature death -- never returned.

Opening to critical acclaim, it almost feels like an afterthought to praise Hoffman's kinetic performance. Just like John C. Reilly in "Chicago," Hoffman has finally been given his chance to shine after years of being a consistent and compelling character actor. He traverses the film's themes with grace, creating two complete halves of a flawed genius, and brings a sense of nuance to Capote's ultimate downfall, a suffering but still defiant figure.

"Capote" is more about the storyteller than his story, and Hoffman gives us a complex character to ponder. In this way the film is not about Capote at all, nor about those murders he came to make famous. It's about us, the audience, who are asked to see, react and then judge this man, for better or worse.