Delayed Reaction: Attica

Premise: A documentary about the infamous 1971 prison riot.

 

My knowledge of the Attica riot before watching this extended only to them chanting “Attica” in Dog Day Afternoon. That’s it. Which seems a little weird. That seems like the kind of thing I would’ve looked up before or found on a Wikipedia rabbit hole. I was pretty curious about this movie after hearing good things out of TIFF. It certainly seems like my kind of story. A documentary that reevaluates a notorious event and tries to do it with an even hand. Sign me up!

 

This is a documentary in which the subject is far more interesting than the filmmaking. It’s not the worst case of it I’ve ever seen: the kind the gets the dreaded “I should’ve just read the Wikipedia article instead and saved some time”. It’s a very straightforward doc that’s stalling for time until the gut punch at the end. The movie jumps right into how the riot began. It only then gives a little context for it, and that context wasn’t all that convincing. I know the living conditions in that prison must’ve sucked. The movie is oddly vague about it though. It didn’t feel like it was some inevitability that there would be a riot. Frankly, when the riot happens, it should’ve felt cathartic. Like “It’s bad to riot, but I get it”. The movie steps on its own momentum with that. It drags a little in the middle there. With no carryover momentum from the moment of the revolt, it got a boring hearing about the leadership structure and negotiations. And the movie does little to build up the tragedy at the end. Maybe the filmmakers figured the major beats were so well known that using them to build tension would’ve been disingenuous. I disagree though. The more that an audience comes to understand or know the players in the riot, the more dread the film can build knowing how it ends. And the end really does play well. It’s tragic. It seems like it was needlessly violent on the part of the people retaking control of the prison. That was quite affecting and made the time spent worth it.

 

Also, I don’t need the movie to villainize the victims here, but I had more than a few “Where’s the poop?” moments watching this. They paint the prison yard as a Summer of Love, when the truth is that there were many violent men in there. They did have prisoners and did put those prisoners in threatening positions at points. There was a few too many places where they skip passed the unsavory side of the prisoners. This does go back to my issue with them not making enough of a case for the riot. If the film went into more detail about the inhumane treatment in the prison, then they could also go into more detail about the number of prisoners whose hands were dirty without swaying sympathies to the wrong side.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend