The Thin Blue Line
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Movie Reviews of The Thin Blue Line
Movie Review: dancing with the blindfolded lady of justice
Summary: 5 Stars
this might be one of the best documentaries ever made, in a league with "victory at sea", "viet nam, a television history" and "nine innings from ground zero".
this film choreagraphies reenactments, interviews and a stunning musical score into a paced mysterious work of art that proves once again that justice is blind and life ain't fair.
Movie Review: The Thin Blue Line
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent. Best documentary I have seen. Very effective way of doing all the interviews just by getting comments without interviewer present asking questions. Don't have to get the interviewer's spin through the questions on the topic. Just the facts, ma'am.Movie Review: My Favorite Documentary EVER
Summary: 5 Stars
Should be required watching for all those "law and order" types in favor of capital punishment.Movie Review: White on White Crime
Summary: 4 Stars
***CONTAINS SPOILERS***
Why is this movie so shocking? Why are there so many people outraged over the wrongful conviction of an innocent man? Could it be because he's not black? The Thin Blue Line is a movie about the murder of a Dallas police officer in 1977, and the wrongful conviction of a white man (a drifter and outsider to Dallas) by white police officers, a white DA, and a white jury, who sentence the drifter to death for the killing. The basic message is that the Texas criminal justice system is hell, even if you're white.
I was born in Houston, TX about a year after the events in the movie took place. I moved to Southern California when I was 7. I'm so glad I did, because I might have turned out an absolute braindead hick like most everyone interviewed in this movie.
It's supremely frustrating to watch because you listen to these people and they're so sure of themselves, while they're talking complete bull****. The arresting officers are so blind to the facts, it's amazing... and the witnesses are complete wastes of humanity (when you watch the movie, you'll understand). The Vidor detective who befriends David Harris (the actual killer) shows no regret at all for his failure in getting David off the streets, a failure which ultimately leads to the death of David's last robbery victim. And the judge is absolutely delusional about his own incompetence/blindness/partiality. He sits there and claims to be impartial and carrying out justice, while basically presiding over a show trial in which he actively participates in convicting an innocent man and sentencing him to death. What's scarier is the fact that the Texas Appellate court, the highest court in Texas, sides 9-0 with the state, basically saying there is nothing wrong with how the trial judge acted. The Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the frikkin country, comes down 8-1 in favor of the appellant and reverses the case, and the bastard judge has the audacity to say "well, if you add up the votes, nine TX appellate judges and one Supreme Court justice for me vs. eight Supreme Court justices agin', I got 10 to 8 in favor of me, so I was right". What a bastard.
In an episode of Errol Morris' show 'First Person', he interviews a defense attorney who says something along the lines of "it's good if your client is innocent, it's better if you can prove it, but it's best if you know the judge." It's a sad truth about our criminal justice system, and watching The Thin Blue Line makes one think about how fair our system really is... or maybe Texas just sucks.
And I'm sure this type of "miscarriage of justice" is suffered everyday by black defendants, but who's making movies about that, thems just the way things is ain't it?
Movie Review: Early Errol Morris film still packs a wallop
Summary: 4 Stars
Errol Morris' documentary works are unique in that one often remembers the story telling and film making techniques employed as much as the subjects being examined. Here, for example, there's a moody Philip Glass score, artful slow-motion dramatizations of witness testimony, and- in what has evolved into a typical Morris trademark- inserts of props and old movie clips to underscore what interview subjects are saying. In one scene, for instance, we see a haunting image of a swinging watch on the end of a chain when one of the subjects discusses how the female police officer on the scene was ultimately hypnotized to help her recall details of the crime. To his credit, however, Mr. Morris never quite lets his showmanship, as memorable as it can often be, upstage the subject at hand. As a result, "The Thin Blue Line" ultimately resulted in an innocent man being set free.
Unfortunately, viewers won't learn that fact from this DVD, which includes just the movie and no further information about the wheels that were set in motion after the film was released. The only "extra" here is a 27-minute episode of Mr. Morris' "First Person" TV interview program, which features an interview with a man who is an expert on "extreme evil". The interview subject spends the show enthusiastically talking about lovely folks like the Boston Strangler and Hitler, then- in the best moment of the show- suddenly gets tongue tied and is at a loss for words when Morris asks him, "Now, what do you think there is about you that makes you so interested in heinous crimes and truly evil acts?" It's a hoot.
In any event, the TV episode is an interesting little addition to the DVD, and it does tie in somewhat to the theme of "The Thin Blue Line", but I would have preferred some specific, after-the-fact information about the movie itself rather than a sample of Mr. Morris' TV show.
Still, aficionados of true-crime stories and documentary film making shouldn't hesitate to pick up this DVD. More than fifteen years after the fact (yes, it's already been that long since this movie was in theaters), "The Thin Blue Line" remains powerful and engrossing, making you truly care about both the specific case in question and the larger criminal justice issues the case illuminates.