This documentary brings in credible sources with plenty of insight for the first two and a half episodes, the most obvious one being Gacy himself from the audio recordings.
Unlike some other real-crime docs, we quite quickly get into the active investigation and the relevant law enforcement personell. From here on, a lot of focus is put on Gacy as a character. This is done quite well, with characterizations from the time of the investigation put forward rather than contextualizing the crimes we know of today. As a result, the documentary seemingly digs for answers.
Once we get to the second episode a lot of focus is put on the excavation of the crawlspace, were the documentary seems to linger. Perhaps not for shock value, but more to pound home the narrative of how evil John Wayne Gacy really was. This is fine, but is worth keeping in mind for the final episode.
The final episode revolves around the trial and execution of Gacy. This is where the cracks in an otherwise decent-to-good documentary starts to show. Once we deal with the politics of the justice system, the jurors, the public perception of the case, we're no longer dealing in pure objective facts or singular personal opinions. Topics like insanity pleas and capital punishment are highly politicized and to address them even in this historical context with overwelming support on one side you need nuance and finesse. We don't get the other side of the coin, we don't get to hear any other counter-points than those of Gacy's legal team. Whether by mistake, or as an after thought, we stumble into the flaws of the US justice system with selecting biased jurors, and systems that think killing people is justified under certain circumstances, but this is never explored further.
But where the documentary has stumbled, it finally falls when the last few minutes are used as a call to focus on the victims, rather than the serial killer, after close to 3 hours of focusing almost entirely on John Wayne Gacy. Where one family member caught in life-long grief is given a small segment, and names and images of the rest somehow should make up for this.
I feel like this devolved from a documentary about an obviously heinous series of crimes into a political piece in support of capital punishment and a continued neglect of the mental health system in America.
Unlike some other real-crime docs, we quite quickly get into the active investigation and the relevant law enforcement personell. From here on, a lot of focus is put on Gacy as a character. This is done quite well, with characterizations from the time of the investigation put forward rather than contextualizing the crimes we know of today. As a result, the documentary seemingly digs for answers.
Once we get to the second episode a lot of focus is put on the excavation of the crawlspace, were the documentary seems to linger. Perhaps not for shock value, but more to pound home the narrative of how evil John Wayne Gacy really was. This is fine, but is worth keeping in mind for the final episode.
The final episode revolves around the trial and execution of Gacy. This is where the cracks in an otherwise decent-to-good documentary starts to show. Once we deal with the politics of the justice system, the jurors, the public perception of the case, we're no longer dealing in pure objective facts or singular personal opinions. Topics like insanity pleas and capital punishment are highly politicized and to address them even in this historical context with overwelming support on one side you need nuance and finesse. We don't get the other side of the coin, we don't get to hear any other counter-points than those of Gacy's legal team. Whether by mistake, or as an after thought, we stumble into the flaws of the US justice system with selecting biased jurors, and systems that think killing people is justified under certain circumstances, but this is never explored further.
But where the documentary has stumbled, it finally falls when the last few minutes are used as a call to focus on the victims, rather than the serial killer, after close to 3 hours of focusing almost entirely on John Wayne Gacy. Where one family member caught in life-long grief is given a small segment, and names and images of the rest somehow should make up for this.
I feel like this devolved from a documentary about an obviously heinous series of crimes into a political piece in support of capital punishment and a continued neglect of the mental health system in America.