Why Did You Kill Me?

Yes, it was pacey, but it is like the film adaptation of "This meeting could have been an email".

Why was this advertised like it was going to heavily revolve around catfishing during the MySpace era ? The preview you see on the main Netflix screen doesn't play that big of a role as you think it will. The documentary is really about gang violence in Riverside, California. Honest advertising would have left me less salty with this. However, it's not done well overall. The girl lost her life because everyone around her was playing with fire nearly all their lives, the family included. From the get-go I already knew the family wasn't exactly a reliable source, especially the mom. You get even more frustrated when you hear that she was high on the night that the girl was murdered. No wonder she nearly got a poor innocent kid thrown in jail early on in the case. I couldn't stand seeing the mom any longer, she almost blew the case because she can't let go of her old street thug habits. She's no better than the thugs who killed her kid - even her sons were more level headed than her and they're gangsters.

The way they reenact the crime scene is with toy trucks and with figurines that look like the old "homies" ones from the early 2000's. That could work but it seemed really low effort in this documentary. I guess a lot of the budget went towards the MySpace page scenes. I don't know how old the little girl was that started the catfishing MySpace account, she still looks really young even now. That was a smart idea until the victim's mom ruined it. Still it's a bit scary to think of this underage girl catfishing gangsters on social media, you can tell it messed her up a bit, plus she was posing as a dead woman ! The whole thing is messed up all around.

The documentary doesn't really leave you sympathizing with anyone, it gets you upset at everyone involved more than anything. However, I did feel sympathy for the girl who started the catfish MySpace profile and the parents of the gangster who got their house burned down. They're the only people that were dragged into the middle of all this without doing anything along with the victim. I stuck around to see who pulled the trigger and what ended up happening, but the journey to get there is infuriating. The documentary could've been a lot of shorter or honestly this could've been an episode in a gang violence docuseries or something - the case wasn't worth a whole documentary to itself.

All in all, the documentary doesn't teach you anything new. It sounds morbid to say this but this is too much of a simple crime to make a "true crime" documentary about. This girl was sadly surrounded by trouble and it was bound to happen at some point. It happens every day in gang riddled communities and it's always unfortunate. Her particular case, the only interesting thing was the MySpace catfishing to catch the culprit.

I'd skip this one. Just Google the case if you're curious. Don't give any of these people the attention - especially the mom.

I didn't hate this but didn't love it either. It took a little while to reveal that the family is not particularly "clean" when it comes to crime activity but that doesn't mean they shouldn't get justice for their lost loved one. It's kind of a mess. The head of the family, the mother, is kind of messed up, on drugs and in the head. She basically has an underage kid pose as the victim to flush out the bad guys. The kid admits to being messed up emotionally by her role in the whole thing. So it kind of makes it hard to feel sorry for the victim's family especially the mom.

Content aside, the doc is fairly fast paced and relies mostly on interviews with the Homicide detective, the victim's family and some ex gangsters, but it's mostly interviews with a few live clips and some recreations. It lays out the tale concisely and moves it along at a brisk pace, with a fairly bland conclusion in the form of text on the screen to update you "10 years later the mother becomes president of the USA and yadda yadda yadda that's the reason we now have an alien invasion happening at our Mars colony". It glosses over major events that would have been cool to have seen in clips or something.

I watched this because Netflix recommended as one of my top choices but I don't think I would recommend it. I can't think of other true crime docs to watch instead, maybe go watch CSI again. If you skip this one you won't be missing much.

A story that revolves around a terrible tragedy, and the uselessness of revenge mentality. I think the makers of this film were trying to point that out definitively, and they did so through flawless editing of what had to be mountains of interview footage.

The film never takes sides, and has no political agenda. The parties involved lay out the story, and it's left up to the viewer to draw conclusions. It's paced just about right, not too long, no repeating itself. Every interview came across as relevant. A good watch.

This is a beautiful story of the American dream. No No No. This is the story of shootings, drugs and face tattoos. No one is likeable, I would go as far as saying they are the dreggs of the earth. It's well made but it didn't make me empathize.