Early on in this documentary, director/producer/star Yance Ford warns the audience that some of the things we are about to hear we may not like. Oddly enough, that was the only thing the the movie that I heard that I didn't like. There's something self-congratulatory about that warning that rubbed me the wrong way. It's like being your own hype man. If you are going to give that warning, you better have some truly inflammatory stuff to say. The other reason I can think of for that warning is that it's meant as a show of confidence. He tells you that he doesn't need your approval. This documentary is for him, not for you. But, that's hedging. I know this because it's the same strategy that I employ with my blog all the time. I always tell people how I really keep up with this blog for me. It's how I sort my brain. I want hits though. If I was still getting 10 hits a day, I wouldn't keep up with it. I want your approval. Saying that I don't is a front. If I didn't, I wouldn't be making this for public consumption. It's the same thing with this documentary. Own up to your intent.
That opening is symptomatic of the movie though. The director's fingerprint is all over this. That's great in some ways. Ford is central to everything and some of the strongest moments are discussions he has with other people like the detective and ADA for the case. However, there were a lot of shots that were just too much after a while. So many closeups and shots of people in strategically dark rooms. The direction became a distraction from the story. For a movie essentially memorializing his brother, it surprising to see the director get in the way so much. It reminded me a lot of watching a Michael Moore movie. Not one of the effective ones.
...OK, maybe I didn't care for the movie that much. Nothing went as deep as I wanted. The investigation about his brother's death fell short. There were a lot of loose ends, like, didn't someone mention the murderer got in a limo after talking to the cops? What was that about? The personal side, as I mentioned, got sidelined by the direction a lot. It still had some big wallops though. The call with the detective when he realizes that he could've either stopped the events that led to his brother's death or helped him to actually get justice was rough to sit through (in a "good" way, for lack of a better word). The film also didn't get me as fired up about the criminal justice system as I expected. It started to go in some inflammatory directions then pulled back or shifted to something else before I could get that worked up.
One thing I unequivocally liked, the movie's greatest strength, was how it shifted my sympathies back and forth. I'm immediately inclined to sympathize with the brother and the family. The more more I hear about the murder though, I start getting that feeling like I'm being presented a purposely biased account, which puts my skepticism on high alert. I hear some about the poor handling of the case and start to feel for the brother again. Then the bombshell breaks about the confrontation a few days before that explains a lot about why the case was dismissed and why things escalated in the first place. Finally, there's the unrelated story of the brother's heroism when he stumbles onto a detective who has been shot. The movie is a roller coaster of sympathies that I'm assuming were intended.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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