Way too much Romeo in Porco film

The Chris Porco Story, a made-for-TV movie based on the arrest and conviction of Christopher Porco, the University of Rochester student who took an ax to his parents while they slept in their Delmar home in November 2004. Brendan Lyons, the lead Times Union reporter covering the case, and arts writer Amy Biancolli, a former film critic for Hearst Newspapers, had a chance to watch the movie early. [...] regarding the "Romeo" aspect: The emphasis on his romantic exploits (one with the daughter of a detective played by Eric McCormack) made him creepy in a bad-boyfriend sort of way, but he didn't come across as a chilling sociopath, either. The younger daughter, Chelsea, received electronic messages from Chris on the day of the murder but there's no information she had a romantic relationship with Chris, as portrayed in the movie. Movie Chris asks her to steal a laptop — recovered by the police in San Diego — that he'd stolen from his parents in a prior staged burglary and then sold on eBay. [...] that computer was never at the police station; it was put into evidence at the district attorney's office. The script goes overboard emphasizing his romantic triumphs over the nitty-gritty of the actual trial. [...] when she held his arm walking into court on many occasions, it always appeared strained and awkward. The State Police had a large role in connecting the prior staged burglaries at the Porco home to their suspect. The imagined scenes in flashback showing Chris arguing with his parents were pro forma, too — like that scene where he reassures his mom by saying, "I'm never gonna hurt you again" (cue the flutes and oboes!). [...] the movie fails to connect the dots between that blood-soaked devastation and the smarmy, boring himbo who makes the ladies melt. The movie did touch on the fact Chris used stolen...