Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Michael Ledo This is a well constructed documentary concerning the highly publicized shooting and killing of teen Jordan Davis by Michael David Dunn. This took place November 23, 2012 in Jacksonville, Florida and had deep implications. Dunn claimed self defense under the stand your ground law as tensions ensued over the playing of loud rap music.The themes included seeded racism and distrust. Stand Your Ground is the new Jim Crow which allows whites to shoot blacks because they feel threatened by them and how can a jury determine how one feels? This documentary pieced together actual statements and trial footage. I don't recall any re-enactment. The testimony is done in pieces in order to present a chronological order of events. Dunn's side of the issue is also presented, but keep in mind the intent of the film was not to exonerate him."In "Race, law, and health: Examination of 'Stand Your Ground' and defendant convictions in Florida," researchers Nicole Ackermann, Melody S. Goodman, Keon Gilbert, Cassandra Arroyo-Johnson, and Marcello Pagano combed through data from a Tampa Bay Times investigation. They further examined the 204 cases in the state in which Stand Your Ground was cited as a defense against homicide or some other violent act and the results were, sadly, not surprising. The study found that in cases argued from 2005 to 2013, juries were twice as likely to convict the perpetrator of a crime against a white person than against a person of color. "These results are similar to pre-civil rights era statistics, with strict enforcement for crimes when the victim was white and less-rigorous enforcement with the victim is non-white," the researchers report." Guide: F-bomb.

Paul Allaer "3 1/2 Minutes Ten Bullets" (2015 release; 98 min.) is a documentary about the "loud music" incident at a Jacksonville gas station in 2012, where a middle-aged white guy ends up shooting at 4 male black teenagers in a car playing loud music, and killing one of them. Upon his arrest, he claims that he was "standing his ground", as defined under Florida law. But was he? Couple of comments: this documentary tackles a super-interesting case from the legal perspective (disclaimer: I am a lawyer myself, although my practice is NOT in criminal law or doing court trials). The lawyer defending the shooter zeros in on it when he addresses the jury: "these are the elements of the Florida "stand your ground" law. You may or may not like that law, but that is irrelevant. Your duty is to apply the elements of that law." The amazing thing is that the jury does apply the law correctly in the end. What is not so amazing, and in fact is quite disappointing, is that this is not an "objective" documentary. It is pretty clear from the get-go where the documentary makers stand in their beliefs. This should've been a riveting documentary and while certain parts of it are (in particular the court scenes), it is not enough (for me, anyway).I recently stumbled on this documentary while browsing the Documentary section of HBO On Demand. Glad I checked it out, even though as already mentioned, the documentary is not even-handed. But the legal case itself is worth checking out.

moonspinner55 The day after Thanksgiving 2012, four male African-American teenagers in Florida pull into a gas station for cigarettes and gum, but a 47-year-old white man in the car parked next to them outside objects to their loud music. Michael Dunn later says in his testimony that he thought one of the boys, Jordan Davis, had a firearm and he perceived a threat on his life, resulting in a shooting that left 17-year-old Davis dead. Most likely, what really set Dunn off was the disrespect shown from a teenager towards a middle-aged man...a generation-gap problem that has existed since the dawn of civilization. The director of this emotional documentary, Marc Silver, takes the racial aspect of the case and builds and edits his film around it. We see Jordan's parents grieving his loss, we see his mother praying and worshipping and setting up a tiny cross in the sand on the beach, but hardly any time is spent on Dunn's fiancée (who comes across as an honest, interesting woman in court)--we don't even get her reactions after the verdicts are read. Silver wants to keeps a stirred pot boiling, and he isn't fascinated enough in the case as a whole to be completely objective (he's convicted Dunn already). The verdicts in both trials (this a result of a mistrial called on one of the counts, which was then retried off-camera) are fair, based on the actions of a man who was demanding respect by force. Dunn's motivations in that split-second when he took out his gun aren't probed in depth; Silver wants to reveal Dunn as a liar (which is true) and as a man with racist attitudes (which is debatable). When you come out of a documentary with more questions than answers, perhaps the film hasn't done a succinct enough job examining the central situation. We understand that Jordan's family is devastated, that he was a solid young man just out for a good time with his buddies (each shown to be completely innocent of malice). The trial judge says, "There are no winners or losers here," though, sadly, I don't think anyone heard him. **1/2 from ****

dawoudbey This is a powerful and deeply moving documentary about a subject that continues to plaque America: the demonization of young black men and the subsequent deadly actions taken against them, both by private citizens and law enforcement.Excellently shot and edited, the film is a courtroom drama. We already know the outcome--if you had been following the case--but the filmmakers flesh out the human dimension of the murdered youth, 17-year old Jordan Davis. Through riveting scenes in the courtroom and heartbreaking conversations with his parents and friends we get a sense of what was so mindlessly lost when this young man was murdered. Though the murderer is ultimately convicted, the film makes it clear that there is no "closure" when a life is so quickly and callously taken.This important film challenges all of us to continue to see the humanity in each other...especially those who have been historically demonized, marginalized and stereotyped.