Metacritic reviews

The broad-spectrum approach of LA 92 resists easy answers while still holding a strong editorial viewpoint about the overlapping institutional defects that led to the riots.

Thanks in part to excellent editing and a subtly gripping score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, LA 92 never lags during its nearly two-hour running time.

By sifting through and tying together an enormous variety of footage, directors Lindsay & Martin (who also served as editor) create an experience that gives a full sense of the anarchy and rage of the post-King verdict days, thrusting us fully and disturbingly into events in very much of a You Are There manner.

[A] taut and commanding primer.

LA 92’s reliance on news and eyewitness footage leaves it vulnerable to the same limitations as that footage – namely the prioritising of sensationalism over insight.

This is a valuable companion piece to other accounts and a vivid collage of in-the-moment imagery.

The superb editing of news footage, the home video recording of the King beating and a dizzying amount of imagery from the heart of darkness during the riots throws us into the unfolding disturbances with minute-by-minute immediacy.

LA 92 is about what this all looked like on TV, a sort of Los Angeles Burns Itself.