Laberinto de errores

This was a go nowhere piece that just sensationalized the brutal murder of these poor victims. I am sorry I watched. It was a total waste of time, and I have lost respect for Morris who played me for a sucker in some sort of P.T. Barnum side show. it also reflects very poorly on FX.

This film needn't have been made if Errol Morris didn't write the book, but he did. I am relatively sure he wrote it with good intentions. I watched The Thin Blue Line and I still think (not believe but THINK), that he really saved an innocent man from "old sparky".

Since then he has squandered the opportunity to ask anything interesting when interviewing high profile war criminals (Robert McNamara & Donald Rumsfeld), in favor of letting them tell their baloney unchallenged in a way that the New York Times and the rest of the liberal establishment could cope with and in turn balonify upon in their retrospective of their own history.

Narrative only has its power when it is constantly being crammed down our throats. Truth doesn't need all that much effort to see.

In 1970, Army surgeon Jeffrey MacDonald is the sole survivor after his wife and daughters are murdered in their home. He claims that three men and a girl with a floppy hat broke in and killed his family. At first, the hippie panic spreads but eventually the authorities use the evidence to convict him for the murders. He maintains his innocence and there is one witness, Helena Stoeckley, who supports him.

The show had two issues. The first is that all the physical evidences point to MacDonald being guilty from the first episode. If one concentrates on only the hard physical evidences, I don't see how anyone can come to another conclusion. Then it becomes a case of hippie panic. These four are all automatically guilty for being helter skelter. In an age when we are dealing with false confessions, one would hope that the defense could dig up more than just confessions. The physical evidence is still there staring in their faces but the defense offers no alternative explanation of the CSI. I am willing to listen to Stoeckley but one can't automatically believe her. It takes a long time for the show to name the other names. She has three comrades and those names would be my first priority. Track them down. Take their testimonies. Fingerprint them. Take blood samples. Get physical evidence. In a way, I understand the defense attorneys. They are ball players in a game. They complain about balls and strikes but the truth is not a game. The only witness that seems to have any hope is Jimmy Friar who called the phone and claims to get hung up on by Helena. And he's a criminal with mental issues. Is there no phone log? It's the same thing over and over again. It's a lot of talk but no physical evidence.

If they don't have the physical evidence, they use what's available. What's available are unreliable witnesses. The best they could do is that the prosecutor threatened Helena with murder charges after confessing to murder. She's a part of the break-in and that break-in led to murders. Even that claim is questionable as the witness becomes questionable. The most disappointing person here is Errol Morris. I hoped that he would be more logical and smarter than this. In the end, he's a story teller and a good story wouldn't let facts get into the way. He would be better off doing a movie about Prince Beasley and Stoeckley. Those are fascinating character studies. More than anything, this mini-series seems to be a sly take down job on Errol and it's his book.

Some good points, but not nearly enough time spent on the forensic evidence. The entire case was resolved through forensic science, which proved Macdonald committed the crimes. Endless rambling on Helena Stoekley distracts from an otherwise fascinating documentary.

This series is more of a response to Morris's book than a video adaptation of it. The filmmakers view MacDonald's story with plenty of skepticism, as does Morris himself in one clip.