49 Pulses

Decent documentary other than the Director's usual police bashing. It seems like all Michael Chinn does is make documentaries just to interview and bash the police. I understand, yes the police could always do better, but nothing he says makes the conversation with the police more productive. He never offers alternative solutions or ideas about what they could do better... If Chinn is so damn brave then why doesn't he put on a kevlar vest and bum rush the shooter himself? He doesn't understand that the shooter literally told the police that he had vests made of bombs that he was going to put on four of the hostages. He also said he put bombs in cars a long the street. He made it sound like he was going to blow himself up and the rest of the hostages like the terrorist lunatic that he was.

What angers me is that the USA has hundreds of mass shootings every year for the past few decades, yet much of the time the police are never prepared. SWAT should be on call 24 hours, 7 days a week. They should have their assault rifles, full body armor, bomb detecting robots, dogs, etc. Everything ready at the drop of a dime. This is what America requires by letting citizens own automatic weapons... As long as fully automatic weapons are legal, there will always be massive mass shootings like this.

Anyhow because the shooter was inside the bathroom with the rest of the hostages the only plan in my opinion would be to use a robot with one of those 6 foot tall armor shields attached so that the police could bum rush through the bathroom door. Another plan that they could have done hours earlier is blow out a small hole on outside wall like what they did, throw in multiple flash bangs as a distraction then bum rush through the bathroom door immediately and kill him before he had a chance to "detonate" any bombs that he claimed to have. They could have done that from the beginning instead of waiting 3 hours. Maybe some of the injured inside the bathroom could have survived...

Always good to see that our most tragic events are not forgotten and that victims names are uplifted and remembered without saying the criminals name and unfortunately that's where the accolades end. The director/producer who also acts as interviewer is always ridiculous with the questions and his personal bias in his "documentaries" without offering a panel of valid solutions for preventative measures or improvements. Although I tried to get through more history lessons on tragedy by trolling Minns collection, I can't stomach anymore of him being on camera or behind it. Asking victims or survivors what they would say to the deceased is a shameless effort to trigger tears and drama, when most of these are mass shootings, why do you need to add to that horror? Everyone replies with something like that is a good question, people say that because they are overwhelmed by such a big question and thought process while already grieving loved ones and doing the interview in the first place. Minn's motives are clear, to exploit tragedy for money while placing blame on government. How original and also tells the audience that he doesn't believe we are smart enough to find the errors made in each tragedy. While law enforcement and policies certainly have issues, if Minn want everyone else to be held to a gold standard, allow me to hold him to one very important one, because instead of pushing his own agenda he could actually provide all the details and forward thinking pathways, by experts, not by him.

The definition of documentary is as follows

broadly : FACTUAL, OBJECTIVE.

1 being or consisting of documents : contained or certified in writing documentary evidence 2 of, relating to, or employing documentation in.

Hollywood needs to push you out of this business. Reviewer out.

Parading as a documentary is Charlie Minn's yet another way to point fingers at the police. He loves to exploit the victims and their families in effort to promote his films. What a shame.

The threat of multiple bombs being at the scene was clearly a factor in how police MUST respond.

Bottom line, it is the gun man who was responsible for all the deaths.

It was heartbreaking to hear the young lady say that she told rescuers to take her friend instead of taking her for treatment. Emotional trauma always plays a role in what one may remember as reality.

God bless all the victims, their families, rescue workers and police, for this incident has truly changed their lives forever. And God help Charlie Minn to stop making money off of other people's tragedies.

Z3

49 Pulses (2017)

*** (out of 4)

This is a rather depressing documentary that takes a look at the Orlando Pulse club shooting, which had a maniac killing forty-nine people. This documentary features interviews with survivors, re-enactments of the events as well as family members of those who didn't make it out.

49 PULSES is certainly a strong documentary and one that's certainly sad to watch. The documentary really did a great job at explaining the terror that was happening inside the club that night including some really dramatic interviews with the survivors. There's no doubt that the strongest part of the film were the interviews because you can see the pain and fear in the voices and eyes in those who lived.

The documentary certainly doesn't shy away from the pain that the survivors have but we also get some nice tributes to some of the people who didn't survive. All of this was extremely good stuff and there's no doubt that the heart of the film is in the right place as it wants to support the people who were killed.

With that being said, if you're familiar with the work of director Charlie Minn then you will know that he's a cop hating guy. There's really no other way to put it but he hates the police and wants to blame them for everything so there's a lot of hatred shown to the police and how they handled the situation. In fact, the police get more blame than the actual shooter so that should tell you all you need to know.

Even with that being said, the film is still worth watching as long as you can put up with the sadness that is there.

I want to believe that Minn's heart is in the right place, but with this more than any of his other documentaries I've seen, I really don't know.

This one went through the motions and just felt a bit off, even if it does, in a sense, provide a platform for survivors of the shooting to tell their story and pay tribute to those who were killed.

But I've seen numerous films by Minn now where he takes a similar approach to covering various tragedies shortly after they happen, and while the intentions are hopefully good, there's just something under the surface that feels a bit off, and there's a chance (cynical as it may be to think so) that he's not making these for the right reasons.

A middle of the road rating might be the best way to represent how it could go either way, for me (of course the by the numbers presentation and editing does few favours for its overall rating, too)