The Leverton Review

  This is the true crime drama equivalent of an Arby's restaurant. It is trashy, salacious, and gross. The idea is to examine stories where university students have been murdered - and I guess come up with some sort of conclusions as to the dangers facing the young. There was one aspect of the series that I really didn't like and one aspect of the series that I really did like. The first is that several of the interviewees mention that it is so sad because the victim never got to experience University life in its fullness. And it seems to have been a line that was fed to them by the producers of this crime documentary. Connected to that, I dislike the premise of this series. It is clear just by the stories that they present that these are not crimes that make any sort of pattern. There are people who are murdered by rapists, people who are murdered by jealous boyfriends, people were murdered during hazing rituals gone bad. Only one of those things could only happen in a univers...

  This was an interesting watch. If you know nothing about the case, this series will take you on a strange ride. My takeaway from it is that the law needs to be equally applied to everyone, and when you start to bend the rules for someone because they have a privileged position they will continue to bend as many rules as they can and tragedy will likely happen. It's hard to talk about this series Without describing exactly what happened and while these events are public knowledge I think it wouldn't be fair for me to explain the events before somebody watches it. I will just say that if the rules had been taken seriously by the people in this community most notably the police and the legal establishment it's possible that at least four people would be alive and one probably wouldn't be sitting in prison right now or at least he would be sitting in prison for a different crime. It's a well done documentary so I recommended if you're interested in True Crime.

 This series starts as a typical true-Crime documentary, in which it begins with loving interviews of the families who have lost a loved one due to crime. But in most of these documentaries, the person that they are talking about is the victim of the crime. In this one. The person that they are talking about, at least initially according to the police, was the criminal. The series then goes on to explore, if not the corruption of a local police force, certainly the incompetence of it. In fact, this small community had the highest per capita rate of citizens being killed by the police in all the country. It's an important issue, but I feel that the documentary doesn't do it justice. I think generally, American True-Crime documentaries are in a blind spot when it comes to crime. What I mean by that is the topic of guns is not touched upon at all. The police could certainly be trained more and better. I think that it is ridiculous that a police officer can be trained in the United...

  Culpability is an interesting aspect of the legal system. When a crime is committed and two people are involved how can you separate one person's guilt from another? This documentary series is another and a long line of attempts to present horrifying crimes that end up somewhat glamorizing the perpetrators of those crimes. In this particular case a woman and her husband go on a murder spree in France and Belgium. One of the potential victims escapes and she is able to identify her attackers and they both shortly are arrested thereafter. The question though is the man wholly responsible for his crimes or was he like some kind of Beast fed encouraged and manipulated by an evil woman. I don't think that the woman in this case is necessarily innocent. He clearly outlined what he wanted to do in his life horrifying crimes before they ever met and she was quite okay with that. So that suggests there is a degree of culpability there. However, the whole tone of this series shifts aft...

  This is a bright documentary, about a sordid tale. It's about a powerful man, the wife he wooed when she was just a child, and a young man who got taken advantage of by both. The story also delves into the hypocrisy, and blatant racism of the modern Evangelical movement in the United States, as well as touching upon the sleaziness and corruption that surrounds former president Trump. Although I have to say, the film did such a great job that Donald Trump was one of the least sleazy characters in it. It seems to me, that the current American age is one in which ideals have perished, great masses of people are convinced by the ever-changing salesmanship of grifters. There are two grifts in America at the moment. The first is the religious grift, which for the most part is purveyed by hypocrites. The second is the political grift. The substance of this grift varies with the day, and the trends of social media. If there is a study that suggests that gas stoves give children cancer, t...

  This is a sordid true crime drama, that somehow manages to rise above its format to deliver a powerful message about being convicted by the media. And about the corruption that is rampant in the Indian justice system. And the plight of women in that country. There's a profound moment when the filmmakers show an out take of an interview with a police officer, and he says that in the case of a sexual assault, the woman is at least 25% to blame. At another time in the series, a police officer is being interviewed, this is a different police officer, and he casually mentions that the police have their ways of getting suspects to talk. By which he means torture. And what is even more baffling is that the same suspect was allowed to escape from police custody twice. And some of the explanations that the police officers come up with are just hilarious. For example, one says that one of the officers was diabetic, so he was peeing more slowly and that gave the suspect a chance to escape. ...

When I first started watching this series, I admit my expectations were thwarted. I was expecting a story of an immigrant overcoming the odds and being successful in an untraditional field. And while that is part of the story, I was not expecting the True Crime aspects of it. I won't go into details about the crimes that happen in this series, although they did happen, so it's not exactly like a spoiler to tell you about factual events. But I will assume, that you, like me, do not know anything about the story of Chippendale's. The acting, especially that of Kamail Nanjani, is brilliant. And the story starts off with us being introduced to two colourful characters, who in any other story would be the heart of the series, being brutally murdered. So if you are in the mood for a dark series that plums the depths of human depravity, this is it. Leverton Review 5/5

We often think of biases as connected to our political experiences, or preferences. But it is equally true to think of biases as being connected to our culture, our nationality and our language. This documentary tells a convoluted story of kidnapping, revenge and corruption. It is the reason that for a time, the French and the Mexican governments absolutely hated each other. And I had no idea that even happened because I get my news from English language sources. So that aspect of the documentary was a little surprising for me. About the case itself, it seems really strange. The documentary is presenting it as if three people weren't kidnapped. But I think if three people were kidnapped, it would be easy to prove by asking their friends and neighbors if they had seen them during that time period. The other aspect of the case that is a little disturbing, or rather very disturbing, is that it is mentioned in one of the episodes that the man who is accused of the kidnapping is still i...

This is the story of a man with deep-seated psychological problems who became a meme and ultimately a convicted murderer. So the story of this man is not hidden from the audience as they view this documentary. He was a hitch-hiker, and he was being driven by someone who then had an accident and in what appeared to be a fit of murderous racist rage decided to kill the other participant in the accident. Caleb, the protagonist of the story, then decided to hop out of the truck and rescue the victim of this attack by attacking the man with an axe. He then gave an interview with a local news station, which then went viral. Then he got a lot of offers to become rich and famous, including having his own reality TV show. But ultimately he was unwell, and this was apparent to anyone who spent any time with him. I think the documentary wants us to ask ourselves what happens if you make a person a meme. However, the brutal murder that Caleb was convicted of was not caused by him being a meme, nor...

This is for the most part an interesting examination of what are the motivations behind the actions of people who have been condemned to death. Not all of the prisoners have been condemned to death in this series and in one particular instance a man is punished merely because he decided to go to trial. He got twice as much time as his accomplice who actually pulled the trigger. This shows the hypocrisy of the American justice system where a very rich judge sits in his cottage and says it's okay that he sentenced a boy to 40 years because that boy didn't think about the feelings of the victim. He was just in the same car, and even if you wanted to punish him he should have got the same time as the one who pulled the trigger, not more. Most of these criminals have mental issues, most of them are poor or black or immigrants. It is a quiet indictment of the justice system itself-an interesting watch.

This is a bizarre story of a man working through some psychological issues while being absolutely wealthy. The documentary does a very good job of telling you the story he told the world over the years, and then, bit by bit, unravelling the true story.  The heart of this story is a scam artist, who unlike others in his profession has the virtue of sometimes telling the truth.  Because of this, he does end up being somewhat sympathetic. There is tax evasion on a massive scale, which the Italian government seems to have forgiven him for, and there is also a question of animal abuse, but it is unclear how much he knew of what was going on.  There's also a quasi-sex cult shrouded in the veneer of a science experiment.  It is definitely worth a watch.  Leverton Review 5/5

The plot of this series is a good one, some unsuspecting characters stumble into a murder investigation.  The characters are well acted, and the writing of their backstories is excellent.  The one thing that sticks in my craw is the way the writers treat true crime podcast fans.  It's kind of obvious that they have never listened to a true crime podcast in their lives as they depict true crime podcast fans as something like modern day Trekkies.  I don't doubt that there would be a podcast about the crimes in the series, or that the characters themselves would try like they do to make one, but that they would have fans camping outside the building, or stalking them in restaurants?  Absurd.  Leverton Review 3/5 

  This film is a scathing indictment of the American justice system, and the French political establishment. One day, a maid is sexually assaulted in one of Manhattan's most luxurious hotels, by one of the world's most powerful men. The case seems pretty straightforward. The man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the president of the IMF, with a history of sexual assault, attacked the maid. The New York police gathered the evidence, but it quickly became clear that Kahn could use all of his financial power to discredit the victim. She was accused of making it up, being unreliable and a prostitute. The prosecutor's office dropped the charges and did very little investigation of his background. If they had, they would have discovered that he was the person who lacked credibility (one of his victims had even been on television saying that he had attacked her)-of course, that was in French-so why bother investigating? Kahn's political career was ruined, but he served no time in jail,...

  This is a true crime podcast, which is trying to solve a cold case that involves a serial killer who targeted prostitutes on Long Island. The investigation revealed nothing, so the podcast itself is, unfortunately, not very interesting.  ⅖

In 1993, Sean K. Ellis went to buy diapers for his cousin. When he got back, he found that both of his cousins had been murdered. Surprisingly, these murdered played only a small part in what happened to him next. He was interviewed by the police, and mentioned that he had gone to Walgreen’s to buy the diapers. He was then connected to the murder of a cop who was killed the same night. He was tried twice, which ended in a mistrial, and then at a third trial he was convicted. Then, after many years, this verdict was overturned because the cops who arrested him were corrupt, and the guy who was killed was also corrupt. The D. A. eventually drops the case, due to a lack of reliable evidence but still believes he is a killer. This is a fascinating look at the life of man who was punished for a crime he probably did not commit, and yet, in the eyes of many is a cop-killer.   Leverton Review:  4/5