5/10
Worth watching but not for journalistic reasons.
11 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
What i was hoping would be a journalistic piece turned out to be a pop-documentary and assassination piece.

Stylistically it is very slick, however uses elements similar to shows like MTV's Catfish, with cheap animated email snippets.

As a journalistic piece this documentary is very poor. Something from the offset does not ring true with the interviews, there are many inconsistencies which go unquestioned. At one point when interviewing Johns ex-girlfriends they all just happen to have the exact same story, one even says she was payed for sex and then says she never actually had sex with him (claiming only to have done other stuff), it feels like they interviewer is prompting towards it. At no point do the makers even attempt to come across as unbiased, When interviewing what they claim to be the actual murderer, he presents them with an alibi for the murder, which they openly state in the documentary they didn't bother investigating. The opening of the documentary is even dash cam footage of Mcafee being arrested, which at no point is made relevant, shortly followed after by the question; "is John simply a master manipulator?". At no point either are any of Johns claims investigated despite the fact there does seem to be evidence towards them in the free press and what could of been a very interesting thread of the story (John being intimidated for $2 million dollars by a government official and days later being raided by an elite police unit.

One of the most compelling parts of the story is about how John treated a female American botanist, though again this story has a falsity that it is hard to place a finger on. The documentary does not challenge or attempt to question aspects of her story. She states that after an incident she "smashes the vials so John could hurt anybody", the documentarian never asks why or what the vials were.

More than that defeating the legitimacy of this documentary are the various interviews with people from it, either claiming to have been lied to by the director or producing receipts showing they had been payed by Nanette (simply check YouTube), including one produced by "Mac-10", who on the documentary it was claimed fled the country.

The most painful part is when she confronts Mcafee while running for president and seems delight in making him uncomfortable.

I did not mean for this to be such a negative point of view or an attempt to defeat what is presented. The documentary lays out and presents the arc and story of Johns life very well, focusing on the period of his life spent in South America. It is well filmed and put together, however journalistic-ally it is lacking and seems quite happy to make no attempt to really investigate anything.

Worth watching, especially if you are not aware of who John Mcafee is but with a large pinch of salt and a little extract research on the side.
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