As Good As It Gets

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The Witness was a very riveting story about the murder of Kitty Genovese. It is focused around Kitty's brother finding out exactly what happened that night and interviewing the people involved. The main message that got across to me was to question everything and that there is always more to the story than meets the eye. By far the end of the documentary was what gave me chills, when he hires an actress to reenact how it would have looked and sounded at the time of Kitty's death. Overall it was an amazing documentary that I plan to watch again.

The Witness is an expedition through the dark and mysterious, shedding light on the heavily misconstrued murder of Ms. Kitty Genovese. The man trying to shed light, for himself as well as others misinformed, is none other than the victim's brother, Bill Genovese. Bill does an amazing job of tracking down ghosts connected to the case, piecing together the true story of his sister's death. The film serves as an accumulation of his knowledge finally shared with the misinformed world. It holds so many beautiful analogies, like Bill's near-death in Vietnam compared to his sister's last moments in Kew Gardens, both of them wondering if they would die alone. I also appreciated how personal the film was; it showed how deeply affected everyone was by Kitty's death: a broken family, a confused brother, and a son trying to do better in light of his father's mistakes. Highly recommend this film!

James Solomon phenomenally intertwines the power of sensationalism and the devastating effects of foul journalism in an emotionally heavy, eighty-nine minute masterpiece, The Witness. By allowing America to follow Bill Genovese's personal journey to seek the truth of the brutal murder of his beloved sister, Catherine "Kitty" Genovese, Solomon taps into the minds of many viewers and allows us to question something in which we, as Americans, are unconditionally susceptible to—the press. Bill Genovese does a superb job invalidating The New York Times article. By bringing the audience alongside with him as he met Kitty's friend, Sophia Farrar, as he hired an actress to reenact the death of Kitty Genovese, or as he read the letter in which Winston Moseley falsely put together lies, the audience was able to experience the roller-coaster of emotions and perceive Kitty Genovese as a person, not just an unfortunate example of Urban Apathy. This documentary will leave you realizing that there truly is two sides of a story and by simply projecting a shoddy argument, it can impact people's lives for years. The importance of engaging in sensationalism is brought to light as you see the emotional damage left to the Genovese family. Whether it be the new generations of Genovese ignorance towards their aunt, Kitty Genovese, or Kitty's siblings inability (besides Bill) to reveal the truth, The New York Times has left a mark.

This film, "The Witness," is directed towards an audience that enjoys crime mysteries and documentaries of this sort. This documentary itself was intended to educate people about the murder of Kitty Genovese and her brother's hope to find out what exactly happened that night. Before viewing the documentary I had some background knowledge of the case and was expecting this to be a look into the murder similar to what a "Cold Case Files," would do with the case. This was filmed to give the story of what her brother went through trying to solve the mystery as to why no one called the police during Kitty's attack. This was a much more interesting take on the case than the articles I've read about the case and I would recommend this documentary to anyone interested in the case or murder cases in general.