American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing

Just watch the 3 episodes back to back and I honestly sat in awe. Very rare a documentary gives all sides of the spectrum and in such an honest hard hitting way. Being from another part of the world I remember the event but never realised how long it went on for or the events that took place during it. The makers give you an hour by hour story from the people who were involved. From the top to bottom of the authorities and police. The victims,the public and the culprits are all given to you too. I was gripped after the first 30 minutes and just couldn't switch it off. Your pulled in and want to be there until the end. Which has in my eyes ,the right one too. Give it a go. I can't recommend it enough.

This three-part series is a broad and profound look into the events, and people, connected with the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon. It's an especially interesting character study of those who were responsible for the bombing, and of those who were most affected on the day of the Marathon- and the week that followed. The actual terrorists, the local Boston Police, the FBI, along with the local and National Media, are all examined and well represented. Those who were interviewed all have very intriguing stories to tell. Extremely well edited and produced with emotional testimonies. It was compelling from start to finish. I highly recommend this docuseries as it was well worth the three hours. I give it a strong 8. If you're even remotely interested to know what happened at the 2013 Boston Marathon, watch this, right now.

Other than having viewed other documentaries, and a recent drama tv-series about the triple murder that happened a few months before the marathon bombings, that this maybe one of the sturdiest and most neutral of them all.

Based on interviews of victims, runners, friends and law enforcement , a massive surge of new reels and amateur footage and stills, and lets not forget the terrible heartshooting sounds of screams and the shootouts from the manhunt.

What i miss though , is the part that i find most peculiar that they do not air, is the lack of interviews from the initial custodial moments, there must be hundreds of hours of search and research from the criminologists and psychologists that mustve interviewed the culprit, and this documentary doesnt give you a clue what happened in the courts. That should be the next story to tell for us non bostoners and non citizens of the usa(im norwegian).

Im not calling out for an hero, cause that is of course all the massachutinarians, but a bit more of the works of miss justicia wouldnt harm the case. As a conclusion i would say that matters of this kind will never come to an end, and im afraid that something like this will happen again. So in the mean time my message to the survivors and the people that lost loved ones, STAY STRONG FOREVER, and stay together in the memory of the deceased.

Well made and intense documentary, a recommend from the grumpy old man.

The elder brother did not make the Olympic trials not because he was Muslim, but simply because he was not a US citizen. His father probably did not know this when boasting that his son would represent their adopted country in boxing. While the documentary expertly stitches together the footage of events, and testimonies from police, FBI, victims and journalists, it fails to spend enough time scrutinising the parents, who separated and abandoned their sons to return to Dagestan. Why did they return to Dagestan and what about their other two children?

The younger brother was described as charismatic and popular in high school but photos of him revealed an emptiness in his eyes. The charm was nothing more than a facade and survival strategy of someone who was not emotionally nourished by his family or community. It seems no coincidence that the both brothers chose to participate and identify with violent sports, instead of taking up chess or tennis. They were the product of inter-generational trauma that began with their grandfather being persecuted for being Chechen and resulted in their father's narcissism.

The father needed his children to be successful in their new country and pushed both sons to achieve. It was the shame from letting his father down by failing to make the Olympic trials that drove the elder brother to radicalisation. He could not blame his father for having lofty expectations so instead he blamed his adopted country and its Islamophobia, and recruited his own brother to his misguided cause. He could not see the forest for the trees, unlike Danny Meng who is himself a migrant from an oppressive nation and appreciates the opportunities in America in spite of the racism he will inevitably encounter.

Generally this was a good documentary, not wasting your time, to the point and telling the story from many different perspectives such as the victims, police, fbi, etc. It does miss more proper investigation into their family and actually talking to the perpetrator though.

I would have rated this much higher, if it wasn't for some of their extremely out of place interviewees as Phillip Martin. He's a "journalist" who does nothing but complain about law enforcement, much more concerned about the well-being of the perpetrator than any victim. His narrow-minded ideologies are just glowing. Secondly we have the muslim friend who's also much more concerned about muslims getting a bad reputation, than innocent people getting killed or actually having muslims commit less terrorism. We all know Netflix added these for DEI. It only drags down the integrity of the rest of the series.

That being said. If you can ignore those parts, the rest is a good retelling of the investigation following the bombing.