Tales of the Grim Sleeper
August. 29,2014When Lonnie Franklin Jr. was arrested in South Central Los Angeles in 2010 as the suspected murderer of a string of young black women, police hailed it as the culmination of 20 years of investigations. Four years later documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield took his camera to the alleged killer’s neighborhood for another view.
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I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Sadly Over-hyped
Fantastic!
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
You have to watch anything by Nick Broomfield with a grain of salt, never forget that this is the guy who made 'BIGGIE & TUPAC (2004)' which made almost everyone think that Suge Knight was the guy who had Tupac killed.Which is something that today most people have changed their minds about, and people from said documentary have since come out with stories of manipulative tactics he uses to get to people to more or less say what he want them to.Anyway he does what he usually does here, takes a camera team around the areas that were affected and start looking for people to interview on the spot.Runs across some people that knew the 'grim sleeper' or just knew of him and asks them questions. With a lot of driving around and discussions that stray far away from the actual documentary subject at times.One thing that struck me as weird was how many people that actually did know him (yes he actually eventually found some that did) would initially start off as saying how he seemed normal and was a good guy and then mention things about him that would suggest otherwise.Like the ex girlfriend of Lonnie's son who initially said that 'Lonnie and his wife seemed like a normal couple, whatever I wanted I could depend on him to fix' to 3 minutes later be talking about how she could sense that he was listening to her and his son having sex and how he was a perv etc etc.And his best buddies who'd swear that he was a good guy and that they couldn't believe the charges towards him to eventually started talking about how he'd torture prostitutes with vivid descriptions.Like okay, do you have any sort of concept of what a 'good guy' and a 'normal' guy is or did you just change your story because Nick Broomfield wanted something juicy to put in his film and he was offering you extra money for it? So yeah it's hard not to put on a suspicious eye here, I'm not saying that the man accused of being the 'grim sleeper' is innocent I don't think he is, but it's hard to know for sure when things get fishy like that. It is possible I suppose that even if they did get paid more for juicy stories (and Broomfield is known for paying the people he interviews) that those stories still are true.Goes on a little too long as well.But still decent enough to watch once.
This is a film that is shocking to see because it lays bare the underside of American society that few are willing to countenance. Broomfield speaks with an array of black residents of South L.A., and uncovers a mind-bending culture of violence, anti-social behavior and sexual deviance. If nothing else, this film shows what happens when society and culture descend into a kind of nihilistic madness. Some characters, admirably, maintain a sense of good humor amidst the wasteland.However, Broomfield resorts to the usual politically correct bromides, allowing members of an activist group an open mic to condemn the police for the killer's actions, with no discussion of how culture and the attitudes of members of the community have contributed to the outrageous crimes that Franklin got away with for so long. This is, at best, a highly simplistic analysis of the situation. One woman discusses, almost proudly, how members of the community refuse to cooperate with the police, and will virtually never report a crime. Franklin's son discusses how his family members largely disowned him for turning in his murderous father. Franklin's friends discuss participating in appalling acts of rape and sexual humiliation against prostitutes. Everyone has a very casual attitude towards morals, behavior, justice, and sometimes human life in general. Broomfield should have explored this in more detail, but instead fails to draw the obvious connection that the police, racism, and "society" cannot exclusively be blamed for these disastrous cultural failings, and thus comes close to embracing the kind of moral relativism and excuse-making that has perhaps been as harmful to the underclass as racism and bad policing may have been in the past.This is still a film worth seeing, but if only Broomfield could have taken off his ideological blinders and noticed what was happening right in front of him, he could have offered a more sociologically relevant and honest film.
This documentary has so many holes. Nick Broomfield is an idiot who doesn't listen to the people he interviews. He needs to stop making documentaries. Example: He'll play a 911 call but goes no further to explain the van mentioned by the caller. Why would the killer call 911 and report his own van and license plate? He asks frustratingly DUMB questions (Often more than once per interview). He even runs a stop sign while driving around. He's inept and I can't stand the way this movie was done. Could have been great. But he made it unbearable with far more questions than answers. What a shame. These people deserve to have their story told by someone who knows what they're doing.
It's not bad - it shows that LAPD are incompetent, and that in South Central life is very cheap indeed. Usual Broomfield faux-incompetence. Can't quite prove the allegation that LAPD were complicit rather than incompetent in the non-arrest of a prodigious serial killer.The impressive thing is the interviews, which Broomfield plays down. He can have people who were hurling insults at him tearfully recollecting, or admitting their own complicity as they realise they cleaned bloodstains or found victims.I'm surprised some local tough guy didn't take him out, there seems to be a strange reliance on the police, who no-one remotely trusts for anything else, to solve the problem of a serial killer in the neighbourhood - looks like local people who weren't related to the victims didn't care any more than the LAPD.