Any Day Now [2012]

MPAA (R)  Michael Philips (2 Stars)  AV Club (B)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Michael Phillips' review
Village Voice's review
AV Club's review

Any Day Now (directed and screenplay adapted by Travis Fine based on the original screenplay by George Arthur Bloom based on a real case which took place in Brooklyn, NY in the 1970s) is a propaganda piece.  That said, I don't mean that necessarily in a bad way.  There are times to when it is entirely correct to "make a case."  And I do believe that this is a story that that people of good will ought to know.

Though Any Day Now is set in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, it's based on a real case that took place in Brooklyn, NY around that time.  It's about a gay man, Rudy (played by Alan Cumming) seeking to first get custody and then keep custody of a severely challenged 15-year old boy named Marco (played by Isaac Leyva) with Down Syndrome who lived in the run-down flat next to Rudy's, who due to his family situation (absent father, drug addicted mother, played by Jaime Anne Allman) really had few options other than state sanctioned foster care.  Pulling no punches, Rudy is portrayed as being a singer in a West Hollywood "drag club," indication of the film makers' desire to not try to "sanitize" the story by making Rudy artificially "respectable" AND also helping to explain why Rudy would have found himself involved in Marco's case to begin with: If Rudy didn't work as a "drag queen" in a club and live in a run-down apartment somewhere in the Hollywood/West Hollywood district of Los Angeles, he never would have had met Marco the differently-abled son of a down-on-her-luck / drug challenged mother.  Yet once one meets such folks in such heart-rending situations, well, what does one do?  Rudy does step-up to take care of Marco after Marco's mother doesn't come home one night (after being picked-up by the cops on some charge ...).

Now due to the particular characteristics of the gay-subculture, the "bohemian" (to the drag queen edge) singer Rudy comes to have a friend (who becomes more of a friend) Paul (played by Garret Dillahunt) a recently divorced and now half-out-of-the-closet lawyer/assistant D.A. who's able to help Rudy navigate some of the then overwhelmingly complex legal minefields that he would have to pass in order to hope to get custody of Marco after Marco's mother is locked-up for a sentence of three years.  Much certainly plays out ...

Now the Catholic Church in recent years has taken the stance of opposing both gay marriage and gay adoption to the extent that in Illinois from where I write Catholic Charities has withdrawn itself from dealing in adoption services rather than be compelled to grant custody of children to gay couples.  So why am I, as a Catholic priest, reviewing a film like this?  I am doing so because theology is made with the Scriptures/the whole history/Tradition of interpreting the Scriptures in one hand and our (humanity's) experience in the other.  This film is a data point.  My own experience both (1) in dealing over the years in my pastoral work with a surprisingly and at times depressingly large number of cases of troubled adults who grew-up in truly horrendous home situations (headed, as a matter of course, by heterosexual but often deeply troubled parents) and (2) actually knowing of a case of a gay (in this case, a lesbian) couple and their experience with adoption (by then, in their case, it was "legal" for them to adopt, but the number of opportunities available to them remained limited to basically the hardest, most troubled children that very, very few prospective adoptive parents would dare to undertake -- troubled, abandoned teens with either severe disabilities or drug problems) tells me that this film rings fundamentally true.   And hence I make note of the film here, noting also, as I generally try to do, what other relevant/published reviewers (see above) had to say about the film as well.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Promised Land [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Michael Phillips (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDB listing
CNS/USCCB review
Michael Phillips' review

Promised Land (directed by Gus Van Sant, screenplay by John Krasinski and Matt Damon, story by Dave Eggers) is a message movie about the controversy surrounding the relatively new natural gas extraction technique called "fracking."  On the positive side, fracking opens up a potentially game changing supply of natural gas in the United States (enough to make our country energy independent for the first time in generations).  On the negative side, the technology has been associated with the occasional poisoning of underground water supplies and even if the risk to the nation's underground water supplies proved relatively small or otherwise managable, natural gas remains a fossil fuel and depending on the true seriousness of the threat of global warming due to the world's use of fossil fuels, the development of this new source of energy could exacerbate environmental problems.

From what I've written thusfar, and from my previous writings on my blog, Readers here would not find it hard to discern that my natural sympathies would tend toward a "natural conservatism," that is, "if you don't really know the danger of something, then you don't do it ..."  I would add however that an IMHO under-discussed aspect of the whole "Fossil Fuel" / "Global Warming" controversy has been the relative poverty of Europe with regards to fossil fuel resources and their relative abundance, if not in terms of oil, then certainly in terms of coal and natural gas in the United States.  To put it simply, Europe (taken together an economic powerhouse of the scale of the United States) loses "little" by "going green," while the United States stands to forfeit an enormous economic advantage that it would otherwise have over Europe in the coming century if forgoes developing these resources.  Now it may well be that the threat of global warming is such that for the sake of the future of the whole planet (including the United States) these coal and natural gas resources would have to remain undeveloped.  Still, it should at least be admitted in public discussion that the United States would be sacrificing "quite a bit" for the sake of the planet's welfare (and the presently poorer nations of the world even more), while Europe would actually be sacrificing "relatively little."

Be all this as it may, this film, IMHO, does a fairly good job in presenting the various aspects of the current fracking debate.  Matt Damon's character, Steve Butler a representative of a natural gas firm called Global Crosspower Solutions sent to a rural Pennsylvania farming community to get local residents to agree to let the firm use their land to extract the shale gas found miles below their properties in return for royalties, is  emphatically not evil.  Butler introduces himself in the film as someone who himself grew-up on the farm, in his case in rural Iowa, and one who understood the importance of "industry" to supplement farm income.  He tells the story of the devastating impact that the closure of a Caterpillar tractor factory had on his hometown's local economy.   As such, he tells his bosses that he's been successful in talking farm residents to sign contracts for the drilling rights on their land because he understood their realities.  Steve Butler's partner Sue Thomason (played by Frances McDormand) is perhaps more mercenary/professional about the matter of talking to the residents, but even her pitch talks to the local residents about their hopes, needs and realities.

All goes relatively swimmingly, except for an early and relatively amateurish attempt by the local mayor to shake down Steve Butler and the company that he represents for some extra and presumably personal cash.  However, when what up until that point was expected to be a perfunctory "town meeting" goes unexpectedly awry -- a grandfatherly high school science teacher named Frank Yates (played by Hal Holbrook) who's done some reading-up on fracking on the internet asks some pointed questions -- and the mayor is forced to adjourn the meeting with a promise that the town be able to vote on the matter of bringing Global into town to drill for the natural gas, Steve and Sue, as well as their bosses at Global's office get nervous.  Things seem to get shakier when an outside environmentalist  named Dustin Noble (played by John Krasinski) roles into town a few days later after hearing of the stand that some of the residents had taken at the town meeting, promising to help organize the town's residents against falsehoods and half-truths being pitched by Global's representatives, Steve and Sue.  The rest of the movie unspools from there ... Metaphorically the battle between Steve and Dustin becomes also over the affections of a younger grade-school teacher named Alice (played by Rosemarie Dewitt).

It all plays out IMHO quite well.  The film does come from generally more Liberal Hollywood rather than from more Darwinian Wall Street/K-Street or Texas, so most Readers here could probably guess how it ends up.  Still the complexities of the questions involved (and I'm not talking about the science here but rather of a clash of competing values) is IMHO presented very well.  The "deciders" (to take a term from the GW Bush years) are truly regular folks, who've had farms in their families for generations, who do understand that there would naturally be some risks involved with the fracking technology, but could also use the money. 

So honestly folks, very good job, very good job!

Finally, parents, the only reason why the film is rated-R is from occasional use of some rough language.  There is no sex/nudity or violence in this film to speak of.  All in all, it's a quite gentle, arguably "pastoral" film.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Jack Reacher [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Michael Phillips (2 1/2 Stars) The Onion/AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Michael Phillips' review
The Onion/AV Club's review

Jack Reacher (directed and screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie based on the crime novel (series) by Lee Child/Jim Grant) is an army/crime/detective story set in the context of a fictional mass murder sniper attack that is necessarily going to give viewers pause.  (The film was released at roughly the same time as the mass shooting at the elementary school in Connecticut).

That said, the film hinges on the following question: Can a sniper who apparently kills five random people actually have been contracted to kill one specific person plus several others to make the massacre seem random?  It's I suppose something to think about.   The question is, does one want to?

On the other hand, I've recently reviewed a documentary, The Central Park Five [2012] about a TRUE INCIDENT in which five young teenagers (all "of color" ...) were wrongly convicted of a crime that they didn't commit largely because society appalled by a horrific crime (the brutal rape of a white 28-year old female jogger one hot summer evening in Central Park, a rape that left her in a coma and nearly killed her) demanded speedy "justice" even if it severely altered/damaged the lives of further five (all "browner" ...) innocents in the process.  

So sometimes things really aren't "what they seem," and this film certainly does train viewers to "think outside the box."  As an example, former army investigator Jack Reacher (played by Tom Cruise) asked for by name by the accused shooter Barr (played by Joseph Sikora) asks the young defense attorney Helen (played by Rosalina Pike) to interview the victims' families as she begins work on (at least nominally) defending the person arrested for the shooting.  She thinks he's trying to teach her the lesson of having sympathy for the victims and their side of the story.  But Jack is actually interested in discerning just how "random" the victims were.  It turns out that two of the victims were meeting on the river bank there across the river from the garage from where the shooter was to have been perched because they were probably having an affair. The two still end-up tragic/unfortunate victims and the shooter was not targeting those two for any specific reason, but the reader here should get the picture.  An incident that appears to look "random" may not be random at all.

Anyway some of the performances are quite good - Cruise's, Pike's, Richard Jenkins' / David Oyelowo's (as the DA and chief police investigator on the case).  Alexia Fast plays a young woman named Sandy who gets caught up in the mess and Robert DuVall and Werner Herzog come to play significant roles in the story as it progresses.

The question becomes, honestly, does one have the stomach for this kind of film?  Yet do we want to see "patsies" then sitting in prison or even getting the chair ...?


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Rust and Bone (orig. De rouille et d'os)

MPAA (R)  AV Club (B+) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
Michael Phillips' review
The Onion/AV Club's review

Rust and Bone (orig. De rouille et d'os) [2012] (directed and cowritten by Jacques Audiard along with Thomas Bidegain, story by Craig Davidson) is a French language film (English subtitled) that's received a fair amount of Oscar nomination "buzz" because it stars the French actress Marion Cotilard who has scored some fairly significant roles in Hollywood over the past several years (Inception [2010] and Dark Knight Rises [2012] come to mind).  Here she plays the lead role in her native language.

The film is intended to be about two "regular young people."  There's Stéphanie (played by Marion Cotilard) who begins the film a "Killer Whale" (or Orca) trainer at a "Sea World" kind of theme park in Southern France.  As such, one would assume that she had some sort of college degree, probably in marine biology.  And there is Alein (played by Matthias Schoenaerts) a more working class / blue collar "bloke," who at the beginning of the film moves down to Southern France from "the North" (presumably Paris) with his 8-10 year old son to stay with his sister Louise (played by Céline Sallette) after the break-up of his marriage/relationship with his son's mother.

Not having many skills, Alein first lands a job as a bouncer at a local club.  It is there that he and Stéphanie first meet.  She had gone there to dance/scope guys and had gotten into some trouble with a rude patron or two.  Alein, the new bouncer comes to her rescue.  The two talk briefly afterwards.  It's clear afterwards that neither was particularly impressed with the other at that first encounter.  Alein, taking a look at Stéphanie thinks her to be something of a tramp who more or less got herself into trouble (and more or less tells her so...).  Stéphanie, rolling her eyes, thought Alien to be a "more muscles than brains" loser who was working as a bouncer at the bar because, well, he couldn't find much else for work...

Such it would remain, and there would not be much of a story following if ... Stéphanie did not have a horrible accident at work.  Mind you, she worked with Orcas (Killer Whales) ... So, as has actually happened (thankfully only rarely...) one of the Orcas/Killer Whales got a bit too aggresive with the trainers during a show and knocked Stéphanie along with a fair amount of gear that was around her into the tank with it.  Whether or not she was initially injured by the gear flying into the water along with her or whether the Orca simply attacked her, the result was that she woke-up some time after the accident in the hospital, only to find to her horror that she had lost both of her legs up to the knees.

The story unspools from there...  Stéphanie, depressed and largely alone finds that she could actually use the help of a man who was relatively strong with previously relatively simple tasks but now much more difficult without her legs.  By a happy fluke, she actually kept the Alein's number which he had given her when they first met in that bar.  Before she probably would have never thought to use it.  Buy now it proved rather handy.

For his part, Alein who still seems to see Stéphanie in a largely objectified manner (as "a chick" if now a somewhat more interesting "chick without legs") still has to come to see her as more than that.  Eventually, as the limitations of his own life come crashing around him as well -- he really was probably "more muscles than brains" and finds himself in a job which only gets his sister, the one who was helping him with his son, fired from hers ... --  he, of course, does ...

I think that I and readers here would get the point of the film and the film is largely well done.  I suppose the truly odd parts of the story is Stéphanie's initial work as a "Orca/Killer Whale trainer" and then her rather rare kind of accident.  The film would have worked better for me if she had just had a random car accident or something more "relatable" like that.

Still none of us is perfect or "an island."  And the people who surround us, who we may initially find "annoying," "problematic" or even "beneath us," can become more important in our lives (and positively so) than we first expected.  And that's a rather nice message!

Finally, parents, while I doubt that most would be particularly keen on taking a minor to a subtitled film anyway, please be warned that the R is appropriate.  There is some romance/nudity in it that minors need not have to see.  But as a young adult film and above, I do believe that it tells a basically very nice story.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

Zero Dark Thirty [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

Zero Dark Thirty (directed by Kathryn Bigelow, screenplay by Mark Boal) is the long anticipated film by the Oscar winning director of The Hurt Locker [2008] about the 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and the woman CIA operative, in the film named Maya (played by Jessica Chastain), who had the stamina/tenaciousness to, over nearly 10 years, methodically put the pieces together and find where Bin Laden was hiding.  It is a great story, a great American story, and that a woman CIA operative had a central role, and indeed several other women CIA operatives had significant roles, so much the better!  Arguably, this story could become the female equivalent of that of the Tuskegee Airmen a decorated all-African American unit of the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II whose heroism/accomplishments helped bring down the wall of racial Segregation in the United States over the decades that followed.

To be sure, the story is not a pretty one.  Much of the ground-work intel was collected using the most notorious of post-9/11 U.S. interrogation methods -- torture (sleep deprivation, leaving people chained in stress positions for hours on end, beating, mock burial and, of course, water-boarding) often in "secret prisons" including one located apparently on a ship docked in the harbor of Gdansk, Poland.  Yet, through the sifting of necessarily questionable intel from all kinds of prisoners beaten/tortured in this way, they did find that 20 or so of the prisoners mentioned the name of a personal courier to Bin Laden, though none of them knew where he would be.  It took nearly 10 years to find him, in Pakistan, even as the CIA agents themselves found their covers repeatedly compromised and lives threatened (and lost ...) on account of working in a country (Pakistan) ... that was never completely on their side. 

The film is 157 minutes (over 2 1/2 hours) in length.  So it's a commitment to watch.  Yet, if one is interested in history / spy-thrillers, then I would suspect that one would not mind the time.  It's a heck of a story to recall.

There is, of course, the question about the U.S. government's (GW Bush/Cheney Administration's) decision in the post-9/11 years to resort to torture (or torture by any other name) to extract information from those suspected of being involved with Al Queda.  Certainly, the legacy of this approach will expose captured Americans to torture in the future as well.  YET, if one is honest about it, American prisoners have been tortured and even lynched in pretty much every American war since perhaps the First World War.  Think of the Bataan Death March during World War II, the psychological torture/brain washing of American POWs during the Korean War, the torture of captured American airmen during Vietnam and the BEHEADINGS of captured Americans (often non-combatants) by Islamic Radicals during the post-9/11 years.

For its part, the Catholic Church in the modern era, despite the legacy of the Inquisition in the Medieval era, has opposed torture declaring it to violate the human dignity interestingly of both the person/people being tortured and the person/people doing the torturing.  One generally has no problem understanding the first part of that statement, but only when one thinks about it can one understand also the second part. (When you beat or torture someone, you cede your own humanity as well). 

Yet one can also understand both the anger at the mass killers of innocents and the urgency of preventing other 9/11 style massacres.  We live, after all, in a world that remains in good part ... Fallen.  (Don't believe me?  Just turn on the TV and watch the day's evening news some day ...).

Oh yes, it goes practically without saying that the film, screenplay, director Kathryn Bigelow and actress Jessica Chastain and possibly actor Kyle Chandler (as best supporting actor playing the role of Joseph Bradley, Maya's first colleague/mentor) will probably receive Oscar nominations this year and many will probably win.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

The Paperboy [2012]

MPAA (R)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars)  The Onion/AV Club (D)  Fr. Dennis (3 3/4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review
The Onion/AV Club's review

The Paperboy (directed and screenplay cowritten by Lee Daniels along with Peter Dexter [IMDb] on whose novel the film is based) is another "indie/art house" film that only passed briefly in Chicago (in November) to mixed reviews (see above) but was nevertheless reprised by the Gene Siskel Film Center at the end of the year (2012) no doubt to underline some of the film's IMHO remarkable performances.  All three of the films reprised this week at the Center -- the other two being A Late Quartet [2012] and Searching for Sugar Man [2012] -- IMHO certainly deserved the attention/second look as the film industry enters into "awards season"). 

The Paperboy is a hard-boiled / pot-boiling story set largely around a family operating a small newspaper in rural Florida in 1969 (before the widespread availability of air conditioning...) and is being recalled to a reporter in the present day by Anita Chester (played by Macy Gray) who served as the family's African-American maid in those days.

The family was headed by the newspaper's owner, lifelong rural Florida resident, W.W. Jansen (played by Scott Glenn) and his "New York transplant" second wife Ellen Guthrie (played by Nealla Gordon) who he met in some convention somewhere.  W.W. had two largely grown sons from his first marriage.  The older son named Ward (played by Matthew McConaughey) has followed in his family's footsteps (even if he left town to do so) becoming a fairly successful investigative reporter for a fairly major newspaper in Miami (the "Miami Times").   On the other hand at the beginning of the story, the younger more listless son named Jack (played by Zac Efron), still harboring a resentment against his parents over the breakup of their marriage, had just returned to his father's home after being thrown out of Florida State University for some unspecified offense, having blown, among other things, his chance to become a top-ranked competitive swimmer.  Upon returning home, Jack's father gave him a menial job at his newspaper of simply helping to deliver/distribute his papers each day (if in a truck) as a glorified "paperboy," giving the film its name.

So much for the set-up of the lead family's dynamics.  Things begin to get interesting when Ward comes up from Miami with his oddly English-accented black colleague named Yardley (played by David Oyelowo) on a job to investigate the circumstances of a notorious murder of a local (and by all accounts corrupt) sheriff Thurmond Call.  A white-trashy swamper named Hillary Van Wetter (played by John Cusack) was sitting on death row for the crime.  There was always some question, however, whether he actually committed it as the evidence was somewhat circumstantial (The sheriff's innards were gutted in the same way as a swamper would gut an alligator ...).   Ward and Yardley were up in Ward's hometown to see if they could shed some new light on the case before Hillary "got the chair ..."

The two's investigation leads them to Charlotte Bless (played by Nicole Kidman) a big haired, perpetually tight clothes wearing woman who's both certainly "been around" and is now probably too old for the big hair and tight clothes.  She had been corresponding with a fair number of prisoners in her day, but has decided to give her heart to Hillary.  She's "in love ..." and even though their relationship has been only through correspondance and he's, well ON DEATH ROW, they're "engaged to be married."  Yippee!  Charlotte shows up at Ward and Yardley's "office" (in Jack and Ward's father's home's garage ...) with a fair number of rather large boxes containing a truly exhaustive compilation of everything that's been written about Hillary's case as well as "all the intimate correspondance" that she's shared with Hillary since the two struck-up their prison romance ...

The result is ... the younger, listless son Jack, living back home in his father's house (who he hates) without a plan or a clue ... falls in love with ... you guessed it ... Charlotte ;-).  Much ensues ...

To get into more detail would honestly diminish the story.  However, it is perhaps telling/poignant that Jack, who could have become an Olympic class swimmer ("if only he had applied himself...") finds himself near the end of the story swimming for his life in an alligator infested swamp somewhere in the outback of Florida.  And it does seem to me that he does come to understand at that moment how he got there ...

So arguably, "the Paperboy" ... "grows up."  But wow, what a trip...

Parents, needless to say, keep the minors at home regarding this one.  The film is definitely justifiably R-rated.  However, for adult kids who despite being in their 20s or 30s don't seem to be growing up, this may not be a bad film to see.  And I do understand why the Gene Siskel Film Center wanted to reprise this film as "award season begins."  Even if the film is intended for adults, the performances are great and it tells one heck of a story.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>

The Central Park Five [2012]

MPAA (NR)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review

In a year of some truly exceptional documentaries including Ai Weiwei Never Sorry, Band of Sisters, Craigslist Joe, Searching for Sugar Man and The Other Dream Team, The Central Park Five (written and directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon) nevertheless has to stand-out in the United States as the most significant (if the most painful) among them.

Why?  Because it is about five teenagers who caught-up in the hysteria following a truly sensational/awful crime -- the 1989 brutal rape of a white female jogger in New York's Central Park (the Central Park Jogger Case) -- ended-up serving years, in one case over a decade of time, for the crime even though the only evidence against them were their videotaped confessions extracted from them (mind you most were 14-15 year olds, the oldest was 16) without the presence of a lawyer.   No DNA from any of them was found on the victim or even at the crime scene and even their own "confessions" were contradictory.  The Prosecutors knew all this and yet ran with the case against these five youths (all Blacks and Hispanics, some who didn't even know each other) anyway.

Was there pressure to quickly solve the case?  Yes.  Were the 5 youths squeaky clean?  No.  They were part of a veritable if impromtu mob of youths that could have numbered as much as several hundred, that did pass through Central Park on that hot summer night, a mob that the five later accused of the rape freely admit to this day did do some pretty awful things.  (One of the five later accused of the rape did say that he saw _someone else_ hit a homeless man over the head with a beer-bottle, etc... But he noted also "we were 14, our jaws were dropped, we were stunned.  You normally don't see those sorts of things ...")

In any case, the whole case was an awful tragedy.  And it can serve as a reminder to young people of two very important lessons: (1) STAY OUT OF TROUBLE.  PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't go near it because ONCE YOU ARE "THERE" you could end-up being sucked into and "taking the rap" for things that you honestly did not do.  (2) As in the case of another stunning film based on another true story, Compliance [2012], PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.  Especially AS A KID, tell the authorities "As a minor, I can't tell or do ANYTHING for you without my parents (all five of the youths involved in this case had parents/families THAT LOVED THEM) or a lawyer present.  I simply can't."

Finally, Prosecutors could save _everybody_ needless heartache by insisting on their own that "Confessions" made without the presence of a Defense Attorney simply be retaken in the presence of one.  If the person really felt remorse/wanted to Confess, he/she would do so AGAIN anyway.  To view at the Justice System as a game would seem to bring-us to this point where we have of one awful tragedy resulting in a second one.  Everybody involved in this case and, indeed, all of society deserved better than this.


<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>