James Franco, Jonah Hill star in 'True Story'

THE ODOR of blood money and B.S. overwhelm the admirable efforts of Jonah Hill and James Franco to go against type in "True Story."

The movie is based on the non-fiction (so he says) book by Michael Finkel, a onetime hotshot New York Times reporter (played by Hill) who, in the movie's prologue, loses his job and reputation when he's found to have fudged facts in a big story.

The movie shows Finkel before the fall in the Times Manhattan offices, horsing around with fellow journos, playing cards on deadline, drinking Coors Light.

Coors Light?

Things are worse in the Times newsroom than I thought.

A disgraced Finkel is scrounging for freelance work when he fields a call from another reporter, who reveals that a fugitive on a murder charge has been found in Mexico, on the lam and using Finkel's name.

The fellow's real name is Christian Longo (Franco), and the cops say he murdered his wife and children in Seattle.

Beat and strangled his wife to death.

Weighted down his kids and tossed them into the water, alive, to drown.

Finkel seeks and is granted an interview with Longo, purportedly to ask the imposter "what it's like to be me," a glib and offensively shallow question to ask someone who may have killed four people.

Finkel conducts a series of interviews with the imprisoned Longo, finds him conveniently fascinating and pitches their interaction as fodder for a book. A publisher obviously agreed, although I must say the allure of this material escaped me.

What did not escape me was Finkel's self-serving motivations.

Longo is obviously, flagrantly guilty, which makes Finkel's credulity - he's the only one who entertains notions of Longo's innocence - not credible. Especially as this credulity is transparently and odiously necessary for his big book deal.

There are characters in the movie who denounce Finkel as a profiteer, and "True Story" sympathizes with them, but is the movie itself not part of the long, Longo gravy train?

Franco does decent work here as Longo, painting him as sociopath just creepy and manipulative enough to hoodwink a gullible journalist - or collaborate with a sleazy one.

Felicity Jones lurks around the edges as Finkel's girlfriend, and you wonder what she's doing in the movie, until in the last moments she gets her own audience with Longo.

It's all meant to put the movie on proper ethical footing. Way too little, way too late.