its about a family where the dad and the youngest son were accused of hundreds of counts of sexual abuse/pedophilia/whathaveyou.... There never was a trial, so the movie basically puts together the evidence, shows the bad policework and the questions that remain unanswered and it leaves you confused... there is a lot of home movies that the Friedmans made during the process of putting together a defense, etc. that is fascinating as well... the DVD is a very complete 2 disc package with lots of extra footage into the investigation, and debates and responses from investigators and journalists, etc at the premiere of the movie where they go at it with each other over the content of the film.... just fascinating, tragic, sad, allegorical, lots of things very highly recommmended. |
I think the son is innocent. However, growing up with a father who is a pedophile, he might have unconsciously picked up on some mannerisms or other basically innocuous qualities of his father that could have implicated him unwittingly. (You know what I'm saying? If I have alcoholic parents, I might not drink myself, but I still might act like an alcoholic in all the other ways -- lying, breaking promises, etc. -- just because I picked up my parents' behavior.) The older son, David, really scared me, and not just because he was a clown. I couldn't believe the comment he made about wishing his mother's suicide attempt had been successful. I didn't understand why he hated her so much. Is that brought out in the documentary? |
David says that she pushed her husband to plead guilty so that a deal could be made for Jesse (which never happened) and then pushed Jesse to plead guilty to avoid a trial because a jury would never let him go. since much of the legal discussing is all David's word vs. Mom's word vs. Jesse's word vs. The lawyer, you never know. They also hate her because she never stood behind them or said they weren't guilty. She was just kinda.....there. That's not what she says, though. it's a big goddamn mess. You should watch the documentary. It's exactly the same feel as the features. And you get to hear this one "victim" go into detail about the most insane (and humanly impossible) account of abuse ever. The police work was just..... bullshit. Obviously he was a pedophile. But not the satanic blood-orgy, 12 kids at once in his basement guy that they made him out to be. |