The F.B.I. Files

It puts you at the scene of the crime!

It's very factual and informative.

Former FBI Agent James Kallstrom's brief but to the point intros, the fantastic narration from Anthony Call. Just two ingredients amongst many that helped to make this true crime tv show a delight to watch & one I still come back to many years later. Some episodes do a better job than others - cases remain more interesting, fun - but the simple formula on display in 'The FBI Files' is something I really enjoy.

You name it, it's here. Bank / armored car robberies, ransom kidnaps, plain 'ol homicidal killers, political / international intrigue, drug deals, big time thefts / heists ... the list goes on and on. Of course this sees cases where the federal government (FBI) gets involved one way or another. Many sensational events get tapped for sources, but it is those simpler cases that end up being the most entertaining for me. Workable layers, human psychology at it's best & worse, those gruesome details. Horrible people, good ones, mistakes made on both sides and a real sense of justice part of the time (mirroring reality).

You watch enough of this show and you'll see what I mean by the format very quickly. The intros, narration as mentioned, but also the routine of interviewing the actual men & women from law enforcement involved in the individual cases and reenactments using modest no name actors (who you come to spot in numerous roles over its run). The staging of these parts can sometimes be cheesy, sparse on dialog, but effective in setting up bits of action, tension, horror, disgust, anger.

The only real "negative" things to say come from issues of overdosing on it. First there's time wasted on back-from-commercial recaps that get annoying. Secondly and more important, the show sometimes stumbled to get the facts right. Whenever this was because of human error, poor research is up for debate. Other times omitting facts, faces, details is on purpose and comes down to cutting stuff for the sake of brevity or to suit their narrative. Keep it tight & on track.

124 episodes from it's start in the 90's to it's finale in 2006, I'm a sucker for 'FBI Files'. Giving me the vibes, feels of past greats like 'Unsolved Mysteries' or 'America's Most Wanted' from a genre that I've lost countless hours, nights to in a search for crime & justice. It's not wall to wall perfection, but there's an undeniable charm here.

I greatly admire the work of the FBI, but the TV series often makes the FBI looks like idiots taking vcredit for other peoples work. I just saw an episode where, after all the research by the FBI on a car jacker / killer, the actual arrest was made by a lone local policeman who saw a car drive by with the driver wearing a nylon mask. He pursued alone, no back was available for most of the arrest, and then after the arrest, the FBI calls a meeting and acts like they succeeded. Finding the killer was completely coincidental, it had nothing to do with the FBI.

I've seen other episodes where the FBI does less than perfect work, and that's ok, by why put them on national TV?

The show features some interesting cases but suffers hugely from storytelling. It's really, really slow and takes its sweet time to describe cases where so much time is wasted on details that don't matter and narrator keeps repeating the same things over and over just to fill 60 minutes.

If they reduced episode time to 30 mins, tightened storytelling and reduced repetitiveness and slow narration style, this could have been a much better show.

great show, pity it leaves out the evidence that doesn't support their story. Also very misleading, it shows pictures of the "crime scene" however they too are reenactments and incorrect ones at that It has the potential to be a halfway decent show if it was done with an unbiased view. They seemed to bend the "evidence" to suit their story and that the officials want to see. What wasn't mentioned was that the case shown has had the sentence overturned and is also being retried, due to new evidence (old evidence that had been reassessed) and makes it impossible for the crime to happen the way it was outlined. If they pick up their standard and look at cases from a neutral view it could be a passable show