Mayerthorpe

The average Canadian will think this film is about the events that unfolded one morning in which four mounties lost their lives. It isn't, and it shouldn't be.

The focus is instead on the perpetrator's past -- how a man who was responsible for the rape and exploitation of the town's young, was known for aggression and intimidation against any who sided with the law against him, and was also known for his love of all things related to firearms was able to get off with a few slaps on the wrist and a total of two years in jail.

The movie makes it blatantly obvious that the local police force and many of Mayenthorpe's citizens wrung their hands in impotent frustration, crippled to inaction in order to tow the line with a judicial system that pays them back with no justice whatsoever.

A great story that fleshes things out -- bridging the disconnect that was so prevalent between the newspaper headlines and an actually understanding of what happened that day in Mayenthorpe -- and more importantly that there were many chances to stop it well before it took place.