LeBallz

Documentaries are a tricky medium because they present as factual, when in reality they are extraordinarily biased. In this instance, the "Truth About Jussie Smollett" attempts to cast doubt on Smollett's grandiose hoax, but does so by presenting evidence that is so slanted and so beyond reason, that you would have to turn off your brain to accept it.

The evidence it presents in Jussie's defense comes down to a few key points, all of them flimsy and none of them actually in support of Jussie's original story.

The first piece of evidence are the two eye witness accounts given by the doorman at the Sheraton Hotel and the neighbor of Jussie Smollet. The doorman claimed to see a masked man running at 2am, right around the time of the attack, and claimed the man, despite having a total face covering was white. The video shows a man running by the witness very quickly and with no more than seconds when they pass eachother. The video skips and some random amateur detectives with zero credibility claim the video must have been doctored. Basic google searches of surveillance footage shows that surveillance videos skip frequently, sometimes by design based on the system. The documentary of course, does not mention this fact. How well lit the exterior of the hotel was at 2am is unknown and unclear from the video surveillance. In order to believe Jussie's testimony, you have to believe this doorman saw a sprinting man, in a second, clearly at 2am in the morning. The second witness claims she saw a white man wearing a hat standing outside her (Jussie's) building at 12:30am while walking her dog and that the man had a rope in his back pocket. Two problems here, one is on the night of January 29th, the temperatures in Chicago were in the negatives 20's with windchill. If this man was the attacker and was waiting for Jussie for an additional hour and a half outside he would have suffered from extreme frostbite at a minimum and potentially even hypothermia. This man was not seen on camera seeking shelter in any of the surrounding areas or restaurants that were open. Almost certainly, he was not the attacker and returned to his apartment well before the attack. The second issue with her testimony is she interviewed with police after the story had broke, meaning the details of the white rope were already public knowledge. Even if she did see a white rope (which is unlikely) this man could not have been the attacker due to the weather conditions.

The second piece of evidence is a washed out surveillance video that purports to show one of the attackers without a hood that must be white. The problem with this evidence is the coloration of the video is so extreme that a 2am shot appears to be in broad daylight. It is impossible to determine the race of the person in the video and in fact even those interviewed for the documentary cannot definitively say. The video would need to be true colored and even then it would be difficult to know for sure.

The final piece of evidence is the corruption of the Chicago police force. There is ample evidence, Chicago police is extremely corrupt, however that does that amount to motive to concoct a massive conspiracy to frame Jussie for no apparent reason. If anything, solving a hate crime would have been a major boost to the beleaguered police force.

Here's the problem with all of this, none of it erases the actual evidence of the case. The evidence that ties the brothers from the location of the attack, and tracks them on camera, to the location where they hailed an uber and then back to their house. Evidence that had to be approved by a federal judge in order to issue a warrant to search the homes of said brothers. The fact that the brothers, under advice of their council, willingly gave testimony that proved the plot and fit perfectly with the timeline, tracking of their movements on the night of the attack, and the purchase of full face masks that was caught on camera a few days earlier. This ignores the circumstantial evidence of the check given to the brothers by Jussie and the text message (and video) of Jussie asking to meet the brothers a few days prior to the attack.

None of that evidence is even refuted in the documentary, other than by Jussie who continues to deny his involvement.

I am angry that this documentary gives platforms to people who are pathological liars and those who enable them. I am angry that Jussie manufactured a hate crime that puts so many others at risk. And I'm particularly angry that the filmmaker believed it was in their right to give equal weight to a totally outlandish fable. Shame on everyone involved.

This show tries to be three things at once. A mystery thriller, an acting class family drama, and a court room procedural. Somehow, it fails at all three.

The story is as cliche as anything else in its periphery. Somebody killed the husband and everyone has a motive. There is a shadowy organization lurking in the background, family members caught up in the most bizzare love triangle this side of Cruel Intentions, and cops on the case that are DISASTROUSLY innept.

The plot holes are nearly innumerable but I'll call out the ones that I found particularly egregious.

1. The DA prosecutes a murder case on perhaps the flimsiest evidence in history. Evidence so poor, even the police aren't convinced they have the right suspect.

2. The DA introduces new evidence DURING trial that the defense wasn't shared in discovery. At least get the basics right of how trials operate if you're going to feature it so prominently in the plot.

3. The actual murderer sits idly by while a totally innocent person is brought to court, literally hoping for a not guilty verdict despite having total control over the situation.

4. The bad guy lawyer working for the bad guy shadow organization gets framed in the dumbest way possible. A simple sit down conversation with investigators would unravel their cause for warrant and render the evidence they collected unusable.

5. The wives stay with the husband for decades despite abuse, even though they have significant resources at their disposal. If he's such a villain, what is the point of all this?

The show is hyper aware of its post 2020 construction. Entire characters existing solely to check boxes and further a not so subtle agenda. It's lazy and at this point feels outdated.

At least the acting was great though? No, it was soapy and wooden. How Jessica Biel keeps getting work is incredible but maybe JT still has some connections he can squeeze more roles out of. Elizabeth Banks is fine, but frankly, outside of comedy she just doesn't have the dramatic chops neccessary to carry a story this weak.

I assume the book wasn't this bad, although judging by the people who praised it, perhaps that is a false hope. Hate watch this at the peril of your sanity.