Auto Focus

Auto Focus is a 2002 American biographical drama film directed by Paul Schrader and starring Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe. The screenplay by Michael Gerbosi is based on Robert Graysmith's book The Murder of Bob Crane (1993). Auto Focus tells a dramatized story of the actor Bob Crane, an affable radio show host and amateur drummer who found success on Hogan's Heroes, a popular television sitcom, and his dramatic descent into the underbelly of Hollywood after the series was cancelled and he formed a friendship with John Henry Carpenter. Carpenter was later tried, and acquitted in 1994 of Crane's murder. Although the crime remains officially unsolved, Carpenter has remained the main subject of suspicion even after his death in 1998. Synopsis Disc-jockey-turned-actor Bob Crane develops a secret personal life, focusing on his relationship with John Henry Carpenter, an electronics expert involved with the nascent home video market. Encouraged by Carpenter and enabled by his expertise, Crane—a church-going, clean-cut family man—becomes a sex addict obsessed with women and with recording his encounters using video and photographic equipment, usually with Carpenter participating.