I loved the story but the movie was really lacking. This movie is a sad but true story of a person losing his life to a corrupt police officer. If there was more money behind the movie it could have been a good movie.
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thesanger-750857 May 2022
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patagea5 October 2022What a waste of a compelling story. This movie never digs deep enough to gain more than a cursory interest. It seems as if a good movie was in there somewhere but they didn't have the inclination or skill to pull it out. It seems like a bunch of scenes sewed together poorly. The brief interactions with the witnesses in the courtroom didn't help to bring the full story to light. The expert testimony from the female medical examiner was stilted and it sounded as if she was reading from a book entitled Forensics 101. The acting left much to be desired. The flat affect of Gabriel Mann as Stu Popper adds nothing except boredom to the character. The movie just leaves one wondering where all the rest of the facts are. Truly disappointing.
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OneAnjel4 November 2021I like true crime films. I work in the legal field, myself. I was surprised this film did almost nothing to show how the case was presented, although the Force/Mass testimony would have been very compelling to the jury; I'm sure what they saw and heard was much more thorough.
Being from 2008, this film was part of the struggle to pull the covers on this type of brutality and cover-up. We now have Minnesota v. Chauvin, which is a real turning point in our communities for all citizens who've been victimized by rouge cops like Derek who was reported several times by fellow cops and abused civilians before finally committing this unforgivable act. This verdict is a direct result of unreported footwork by the orange guy who implemented police reform as soon as the death of GF was announced.
The difference with the Thacker case is that, as the attorney claims, the FBI eventually pardoned the convicted cops. Well, I'm not a trial attorney but I can tell you that only the POTUS can Pardon a murderer; and a pardon in no way reverses the legal conclusion of the courts or expunges a judgment. The FBI is the one who investigates petitions for pardon. Once it has concluded the investigation, they submit it to the office of the President without prejudice.
The attorney, who wrote this film and has various blogs around the internet, claims his intent was to show FBI corruption but this film never touches on that except a footnote at the end. Researching his blogs identifies his main complaint as being that there was no grand jury and no trial supporting the pardon, and that they created false evidence, which the writer does not elaborate on.
None of this is required in a pardon.
The truth is, civilians don't have the clearance to know why the FBI do what they do. People call the FBI criminals all the time because they take laws that apply to civilians and apply them to this huge leg of Homeland Security. For all we know, the conviction prevented them from continuing to employ one or more of the cops as some kind of informants or agents. I seriously doubt it was just to get the best donuts when they visit Iowa, but in 1989 it very well could have simply been to show support to the police. It was a different time.
I feel the attorney is doing a disservice to his late client and the ground-breaking verdict he secured by making this now about some imagined FBI corruption. He should research how a pardon is processed and stop blaming the investigative branch that handled the paperwork. -
lgranholm13 November 2021There is no ebb and flow to this film, one sided during the court case, like to have seen or have some relatable interactive banter between both sides.
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rebeccagrier23 November 2019I am so glad that I did not listen to the nay-sayers. This was a fact based film about police abuse of power. Personally I am a supporter of the boys in blue. However we all know about facts being tainted by higher ups who want to win to advance careers. I don't trust prosecutors who encourage planted evidence and evidence hidden to advance their personal careers , regardless of what is right Look at Steven Avery. Set up in every way maybe to avoid a hugh payout and maybe vengeance after such a long time. This film however true, seeks to show that power, can indeed be corrupted. It may or may not be factual but it shows that we must all be vigilant.
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rhefner20022 September 2020The true story of the 1983 Thacker case could have made a great film, but this one suffers from mediocre acting, poor dialogue, a hurried plot with zero nuance, and indifferent direction. The result is an almost total lack of motivation for the audience. It's pretty much on the level of a bad TV movie.
I can't help but mention that Colby French, as the bad cop, wears the worst hairpiece in the history of cinema. Perhaps the cop in the real life story had a bad hairpiece.....?
It's altogether too bad, because this crime was an outrage perpetrated by corrupt cops, and a good screenwriter and director could have made this story dramatic and compelling. Instead, it's sleep inducing. -
winstonfg22 November 2012This is the first time I've been the first person to write a review, which is surprising, considering this film has been out for 5 years ... But then again, perhaps not, because there really isn't much to enthuse about.
Perhaps it comes from having a screenplay basically written by the main protagonist, but there's absolutely no attempt to explain the reasons for the decisions that went against our "hero" - and I believe there were several - they're simply dismissed as arbitrary and possibly corrupt. And the courtroom scenes have to rank as some of the dullest and most unedifying I've ever seen in a film which is essentially about a court case.
To be honest, the most interesting sequence is the first 5 minutes (the videotape of the interrogation), but after that things start to go downhill quickly. There's no tension, and no attempt to explain anyone's motives; and the movie meanders its way slowly to the courtroom where, after more tedium, the jury return a verdict that frankly feels like it comes out of nowhere. On the basis of this outing, I'm not sure I'd trust Gabriel Mann to argue the case for the Pope being Catholic.
About the only actors who show any spark are John Savage and Lee Garlington, as the parents of Kevin Thacker. Sadly, they're not on screen long enough to give this movie any impetus, and the whole thing fizzles out like a damp squib.
Lesson for the future chaps: ponderous dialogue and trite platitudes about justice and the misuse of power do NOT a courtroom drama make. -
shondarae_9919 May 2019Bad acting, bad soundtrack, bad directing and bad writing. I love true stories so I should have just stopped watching and either read about this case or found a documentary to watch.
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HumbleMensa23 November 2021I am giving this particular film a relatively high score because it is really obvious that the only problem with this movie is low budget. Or lack of funding to produce. If it had been a bigger budget this would have gotten a 10. Why? For the pure emotion it brought forward, which is what I look for in a movie regardless of the genre. The direction and filming easily represented that yellowish early 1980's shade of telling a story that deserves to be told. The actors did what they could, the scenery is very 1980's and while the story could have been more evolved, it was not a Hollywood production with all the bells and whistles. I will always pull for the underdog movie and I liked it. Also, a tragic case.
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anniem-8978027 May 2019Hard to watch as you know the outcome a death of a son and the fight for justice against police brutality. Thanks to whoever got this right to show the unending pain of the parents in the quest for justice before they both passed away.
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lavatch13 February 2022The expression "eyes wide open" is used by attorney Stu Pepper as he implores a jury to carefully consider the evidence against police officers in the death of a young man named Kevin Thacker. The film is virtually a docudrama of the investigation and trial that occurred in the 1980s.
The filmmakers approached this case with great sensitivity. There was an extremely thoughtful treatment of Kevin's grieving parents and especially attorney Stu Pepper who worked on the case for an entire year.
Much of the case was built on circumstantial evidence. But the strong forensic evidence pointed to Kevin being bludgeoned to death, as opposed to taking a fall from atop the building, as detailed in the police version.
The performances were outstanding with extremely credible portraits of the attorney Pepper and his able assistant Monica. The most moving characters were the parents whose lives were never the same after the loss of Kevin. The outstanding location filming recreated the early 1980s in great detail, especially in the outdoor footage.
A theme of the film was in the concept of justice itself. Pepper's favorite character from history was Socrates. Much of Pepper's courtroom manner was a model of the kind of virtue championed by Socrates and his pupil Plato. The attorney subtly reminded the jury that in their deliberations the unexamined life is not worth living.