Three thrillers (two docs, one scripted) that all cover real-life incidents…
Devil’s Knot…Skip this mess of a film. The tale of the West Memphis Three (the three innocent teenagers in Arkansas that were arrested and convicted for the murders of three small boys solely because the cops mistakenly thought they were satanists) has been covered far better in four separate documentaries: the Paradise Lost trilogy, and West of Memphis. This film doesn’t contain much new information and all we’re left with is a lifeless rehash of events we already know. We don’t see any of the real-life frenzy that surrounded these murders and spun the small town into a crazed witch hunt. In fact, the film is oddly devoid of passion considering the subject matter, and nearly everyone on film has been toned down from their real-life counterparts. Maybe that’s what happens when a Canadian director tackles a backwoods Southern horror story and casts Colin Firth, yes, Mr. Fucking Darcy, as his hero. The film is full of head-scratching decisions, like letting the defense investigator (Firth) be the lead character or casting Reese Witherspoon as a quasi-heroine in the role of one of the boy’s doubtful mothers (the real-life version didn’t seem doubtful at all of the teenager’s guilt during the first two Paradise Lost films) or letting the town of West Memphis off the hook when the real-life version was much more hateful and blood thirsty and dead certain. Ultimately, you wonder who this film is really made for since those most likely to see it are people who’ve already seen better versions in the documentaries. Grade: D
The Galapagos Affair…A sophisticated true-crime documentary that is Hitchcockian but a little dry in some spots. It details a small community of Germans that set up on The Galapagos Islands and how there was eventually a murder amongst them. There are vivid characters (but, being German, too many of the real-life characters seem strict and unlikably rigid) and an excellent atmosphere but I think this 2-hour doc could have easily been twenty minutes shorter. Grade: B
Whitey: The United States vs. James Bulger…See this documentary. Even if you think you know the story of notorious Boston mafia boss Whitey Bulger, this doc shows you that you really don’t. Unsurprisingly, it was made by the same director as the Paradise Lost films, taking his knack for getting at the truth of sensational crime stories from rural Arkansas to Irish-American Southie. He gets great flavor from a cast of feisty locals, but there’s a real story beneath the colorful characters. The typical narrative is that Whitey Bulger was an informant for the FBI who had a corrupt relationship with childhood friend John Connolly, but this film lays out a convincing case for why that’s not true, and, more disturbingly, that Connolly might have been the scapegoat for an FBI that knew what he was doing the entire time. Grade: A-