Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Sick Product of a Sick System

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The case of all cases for me, I keep returning back, every time I read a new book on the subject. Three 8 year old boys lose their lives, but are the correct killers on trial? A case of tragedy, that leaves many outstanding question marks! This is either a case for having the right people, with a high knowledge of forensic cleaning, or coerced statements, innocent young boys in prison sitting in prison, whilst thevtrue culprit/s sit in wait.

First of all, the rating should be on the film and not anything specific it contains right so for that reason I give this one the lowest possible because it's a classic case of a bias idiotic perspective they view this case. Documentaries today is about twisting the truth rather than exposing it, the world is upside-down.So I'm 100% sure that these psycho teens committed the crime.Their defense was so apathetic, what teenager wouldn't cry, rage and just panic over the possibility of being convicted for murder if they had nothing to do with it. The one guy, the one with the black shark eyes even smirk, waves and seem a bit proud at times in and around the court room. The retard gave a statement where he confessed the crime and goes into details on what they did. This is the thing the film makers and the conspirators claim to be a false testament meaning that the police either force him to confess or that the police interrogate in such a way that the suspect are manipulated or tricked into confessing the crime. But why would this be even remotely plausible if the police on the tape question again and again about details if they police had planted the statement they wanted the suspect to say.Like "at what time did you come there" -"at 7 or 8", "before you said around 9" - "yea, around 9" , "so which is it, 7 or 8 or 9", "-8 or 9" and it goes on like this. Say that the police had their estimated time frame for the murder at 8. Why would he Not stop asking when he said 8 but instead ask again and again like a honest cop asking to get a straight answer would. No no no! His statement was real. Guilty!You should instead question these film makers and those crazy nuts giving the murderers such support on at best equally unfounded evidence that they were innocent. The women that fall in love with killers is a classic too, do you really believe this broad is the exception?Hell no, these guys planned to kill and killed these children.

I was really looking forward to watching this. I recently got a lot into documentaries, and I felt as if this one had something fascinating and unusual.This was filmed with what we call a great "economie de moyens" : it is denuded of many, many effects that documentaries commonly overdue: breathtaking music, scenic shots, narration...Nothing here is meant to look better or worse then it is : everything is displayed in all its confusion, ugliness and nonsense. The directors worked hard to come out with a very objective movie. Although you understand that they are on Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley's "side", they do not try to moderate the other "side"'s pain and loss. If anything or anybody looks suspicious or even grotesque at some point of the movie, it is not because it was caused by the film makers :it just happened that way.By reading reviews and comments over this movie, I realize that a lot of people unfortunately pick one side and speak badly about the other, as if there was good and evil in a debate like this one. Things are not that simple. It is absolutely understandable that after the murder of your children, you feel the desperate need to find someone to blame it on : the parents are not monsters for believing in the guilt of these three teenagers. And please, please try to see further than the end of your nose : most of the people that have interest in witchcraft do not practice it. A lot of murderers do not wear black and do not listen to metal music. A lot of non-murderers read Stephen King novels and wear Dimmu Borgir t-shirts.This is an intelligent movie that deserves to be watched intelligently and respectfully.

Throughout the course of this documentary (and the one that was compiled afterwards) we watch interviews where individuals are led to give a particular answer, either by another person, by an attorney during a trial, in conversations with media representatives or simply addressing the filmmakers' camera. Answers are always ones, the subject believes, what the listener wants to hear. It's true of the grief and rage expressed by the victims' families as well as the indignation and fear by friends and family members of those accused. No one seems authentic; everything appears calculated.And that very phenomenon winds up convicting 3 young men of murder and in one instance to death row. We're not told what led investigators to interview a young man who winds up confessing—unconvincingly—to the crime and implicating two of his friends. But once investigators focus on these three young men, very few facts (some flimsy fiber evidence and a knife found in a pond in proximity to one of the accused which isn't even tied to the killings) stand in the way of their conviction.While the cameras are rolling before the convictions, we can see that the accused stand very little chance of being acquitted. We don't see the jury nor are they interviewed, but there is so much hysteria within the community of West Memphis about the case, that we assume the jury is ready to convict even before they're seated. While there is no glaring misrepresentation by the defense attorneys, their efforts to combat the stigma of the horrible nature of the crime and the oddness of the accused are all in vain.I became uncomfortable with the focus placed on one of the family members of the victims, John Mark Byers. His neediness to be the center of attention may only be a combination of his grief, his mental limitations and a life where he most likely was marginalized and his son's death gives him a stage to perform on. And that's very much what happens with the accused. The community condemns them in the same way the filmmaker's allow us to condemn John Mark Byers, who has enough in his background to raise a thousand red flags. And we're left to wonder why the authorities never pursue him. My first thought is that the filmmaker's aren't letting us see all of his story. At one point (in the second installment of the documentary), Byers blurts out that his wife was murdered, when in fact the coroner has ruled the cause of death "undetermined." But his "slip of the tongue" may only be that he's convinced his wife's death was due to the aftereffects of his child's murder, and he holds the 3 accused as if they not only are responsible for his son's death but also for his wife's through her grief (she apparently had a long history of drug abuse).Nevertheless, the film holds you. I watched parts I & II back to back. And while I was left wanting answers to very simple questions (what was the time between when the boys were missing and when their bodies were found, who located the bodies, were there any footprints, did they drown?…on and on), I did witness how people can be manipulated while at the same time feeling manipulated by these very powerful films.