Prince Andrew: Banished

Very interesting documentary. One wonders how Prince Andrew s life would have turned out had he married this pretty actress Koo Stark.

The documentary shows how a spoiled child is literally spoiled, like rotten.

A mother who had him as her favourite for understandable reasons. An environment where nobody will ever tell you anything but "yes". The pain inherent to being a number two (think of that South park episode with Bono).

It was clearly very easy to find people close to him to talk smack, so much that it was quite remarkable. In fact, it's mentioned several times that nobody liked or likes the guy, which is made very understandable.

The poor guy ends up looking like an entitled imbecile with no redeeming qualities. You would have thought that over the years he'd have had the smarts to get involved with a noble cause, not unlike Alfred Nobel wanting to NOT be remembered as the guy who invented TNT, or so many (all?) billionaires attaching their names to well-meaning foundations.

But not Prince Andrew, apparently. Just a sad horny intellectually inferior narcissistic loser in a downward spiral, whose life peaked as a helicopter pilot when Britain was still waging wars.

The saddest thing of all: how much sleep did his shenanigans cost the Queen, and therefore did he precipitate her passing? Hard not to think about that after watching this documentary, given the sequence of events.

I'm not surprised that rich men are horny and that vulnerable women are preyed on by powerful men, because I don't live under a rock. But the depiction of sense of entitlement, stupidity and lifelong series of poor decisions of that man was really quite staggering.

A lot of the Jeffrey Epstein docs are disappointing because there really is no information. This too is similar. The people they interview are mostly people who don't have any actual information and are largely speculating based on what they know. Here we talk to people like Tina Brown and Dickie Arbiter. They don't know that much.

We go through the history of Andrew and, if you don't know this stuff, it might be interesting but most of what they cover we already know. There is no one they talk to who knows Andrew and can offer meaningful reasons why this stuff happened. Or even offer any defense. For instance, the. Virginia Giuffre lawsuit was settled when Andrew's team demanded the original photo of her and Andrew... humn... does seem that is evidence the photo was doctored but no one is touching that fact.

Just a very basic shallow documentary, piling on to the news that is already out there.

This film is a decent enough overview of the life of Prince Andrew and his fall from grace. Even though some of the topics are indecent, this Peacock documentary deserves much credit for refraining from using indecent language and photographs. (Some of the photographs are a bit risque, but not too much.)

We basically learn Prince Andrew was his mother's favorite, was spoilt, had a purpose in life when he was in the Navy, and it all went downhill after he left the Navy. He liked the good life, but did not have his older brother's money or position in life. This resulted in very bad choices, including a close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

The film jumps around in its interviews with various individuals, but not in a confusing way, like so many other documentaries of its type. It does focus on his "sex addiction" and Virginia Giuffre's lawsuit, but, once again, not in a sensationalized way. Peacock does indeed deserve praise for not making a sleazy type film, but one that provides a lot of facts, as well as a concise picture of Prince Andrew's life.