Biopics can be difficult even for an experienced filmmaker. The nature of the art form requires that a large part of the story, sometimes the subject's entire life, be severely truncated and other artistic liberties taken in order to create an interesting film with a sensible runtime. No matter how enthralling a person's life may be, to recount his or her story in real time to the minutest detail would be an absurdly foolish venture for obvious reasons.

However, artistic liberties can cause problems. It was OK for Mel Gibson to play fast and loose with history when he was making Braveheart; everyone involved in the events portrayed in that film has been dead for centuries. But Ron Howard couldn't have just added aliens to Apollo 13 because he thought it was more compelling. And what artistic liberties does a filmmaker take when his or her subjects aren't heroes, inspirations or even good people? What do they do when profiling monsters?

Blue Caprice is the latest from special effects supervisor-turned-director Alexandre Moors. The film chronicles John Allen Mohammad (Isaiah Washington) and Lee Boyd Malvo's (Tequan Richmond) infamous October 2002 killing spree that held Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. in a grip of terror for three traumatic weeks and ended with 10 people dead, three wounded and a dozen more unconfirmed victims. The Beltway sniper attacks remain one of the darker chapters of American history in recent memory, and a chapter that is sadly and inexorably linked to the City of Destiny: Mohammad learned to shoot while stationed at Fort Lewis, and Tacoma is the city he and Malvo called home prior to their rampage.

So the question remains: What artistic liberties does a filmmaker take when profiling monsters? Surprisingly few. Moors doesn't insult the victims, their loved ones or the audience by asking us to make sense of the senseless, nor do the performances by Washington and Richmond suggest we are looking at anything but absolute evil. Washington's Mohammad is an unhinged, wicked man at the start of the film, and his deranged malevolence only becomes more apparent and intense as it progresses. Malvo is a young man craving a father, and while Mohammad does influence him, you don't see Malvo as some naïve pawn for even a second. He's 17, old enough to know good from evil, and Richmond's performance makes you ponder the dark, twisted soul that would go along with such a grisly plan so readily.

Moors doesn't ask us to empathize or sympathize with Mohammad and Malvo, because that's not what you do with monsters. You kill them or chain them up in a deep, dark hole where they can't hurt anyone ever again. (Mohammad was executed in 2009 and Malvo will spend the rest of his life in prison.) You don't try to understand them. Blue Caprice reminds you why.

NOTE: Saturday, Oct. 5, Sean Robinson, The News Tribune reporter who covered the real events that inspired Blue Caprice, will lead a discussion following the 2 p.m. screening.

BLUE CAPRICE, opens Friday, Oct. 4, The Grand Cinema, 606 S. Fawcett Ave., Tacoma, $4.50-$9, 253.593.4474.