Instant Favorite.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Ask yourself a question, what if a loved one was brutally killed, but you were the only one who cared about getting justice for the victim? That was the reality in the small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in 2008, when a migrant worker was killed in a hate crime. Shenandoah is one of those small towns, where everyone knows everyone else, most people even work in the same place, but recently, things had been changing. Migrate workers had been brought in to keep the failing factories open, and the citizens of the flailing town were losing their jobs. One night some drunk teenagers were joking around, but to a recent arrival to this country, who didn't speak the language or know the culture, it looked like something else. As he confronted the teens, they proceeded to assault him, shouting racial slurs in one of the worst assaults the town had ever seen, and when the dust had settled, the worker was dead. After a brief investigation, the police linked the crime to several football players and charged them with minor crimes, but the town wasn't outraged, in fact, as this documentary explores, most of the townspeople actually approve of what the police did! This documentary is utterly shocking, taking us through the crime and investigation, while giving us a look at both sides from the towns reaction to the man's fiancée and the very few outsiders who actually faced threats and harassment, simply for asking that justice be served. Does this kind of thing really still happen in the United States? According to this documentary, the small town racist, gang, mentality is still alive and well, and it's closer than you think. Fighting it isn't as simple as going online and telling people about it either. The documentary was truly shocking, not just because of the ages of the boys involved, but for the sheer fact that these people thought they were justified in what they had done, and by how the react to anyone who tries to tell them differently.

well done documentary that, for the most part, just lets the camera roll while people reveal themselves. you know it's a good film when you immediately start researching it after watching. i read many reviews and commentaries after watching the film as i had many questions that were not explored by the filmmakers. some were merely missing scene- setters like giving a clear name and picture of each person from the start as i was confused at times as to who was who. some people were identified, but others not so well. (i find the misidentification of the victim's last name by some reviewers lamenting how he had been dehumanized to be ironic given that the assailants themselves didn't know his name for sure). other omissions, i think, were subtle clues as to the filmmaker's attitude. the victim himself was somewhat dehumanized by the director's decision to give almost no background about him other than that he came to the US for economic reasons and had a family, here and in Mexico. it appears he was (but it is very hard to confirm this - i don't know) in violation of immigration law. the filmmaker's official website does actually mention "undocumented" once, but this is not obvious. i understand why that fact was purposely left out as this film is about racism and senseless behavior, not public policy. however, even the film itself eventually specifically asks why people act/feel the way they do - just because? learned from environment? taught that way by their parents/community? etc...? public policy has a lot to do with shaping our worldview. in real life, the "story" is not made up carte blanche in a vacuum, unmoored by any past circumstances.i am not trying to offend anyone and am not "blaming the victim", but rather - i think this is a missed opportunity to try to explain what is an aspect of why there is such a strong current of resentment towards immigrants, especially Hispanics, in the US: the flagrant violation of US law combined with the (seeming) failure to want to be an "American" (whatever that means). the speaking of the predominant language of a country (that would be English in the US - i know - my "i"s are not capitalized, nor are the beginnings of sentences - i'm spoiled by iOS) is a sign of efforts to assimilate. the reviewers excoriating the "USA! USA!" rally i guess just don't get this. if one wanted to successfully live for years in Mexico one had better learn Spanish real quick. we are given no indication how the victim lived his life, other than he had a girlfriend. we have no idea how he fit into the community that is being revealed to us. there is little attempt by the filmmakers to explore how pervasive "Hispanic" culture and language actually are in Shenandoah, or how "assimilated" recent immigrants are. there is no mention of any problems with integration of African-Americans or any other minority group. we are left with an avoidable tragedy of a clique of drunken teenage boys beating up a seemingly random Hispanic man badly enough that he dies and the conclusion that the police really didn't care and possibly purposefully undermined an attempt at getting to the truth of what happened. the film seemed to be an indictment of the whole town without showing us the 'whole' town.i remain confused about the final sentences and "justice" meted out. there is not really a satisfying "wrap-up" given, even if it were to just be a scrolling summary with the end-credits. very little of the actual trial was presented. part of the subtitle is "... the American Dream on Trial". what? where'd that come from? there was no attempt to define "the American Dream". in fact, you could say the victim had an Dream and it ended with his murder. i do think that if you approach this documentary as an attempt to focus very narrowly on a small town, how its fortunes have changed, and its individuals and overall "culture", then you will be somewhat satisfied, but there remain large gaps in the picture we are presented. the demolition of the town's old Catholic Church was nice reality/symbolism. i just felt a larger opportunity had been missed by the narrow focus. the power of this film is the decision to focus mostly on just letting people speak for themselves. even the woman with the microphone at the "USA Rally" felt compelled to admonish the more radical shouters in the crowd.i was left with many competing thoughts and emotions regarding the mentality and behavior of many of the people (and our society) in the film. this is probably why i felt strongly enough to offer a review - not something i do very often. this speaks to the power of the film: to give the viewer pause, and stimulate some reflection, both of self and of "tradition". one is left to once again ponder, like the main cooperating perpetrator, how such a tragedy happens ... there are no simple explanations and few people are really very self-aware, teenagers and adults alike ... concluding "they're just a bunch of racists" might be true, but fails to enlighten anyone as to the "why", and thus fails to offer any hopeful analysis or suggestions for how our society can minimize such mindsets and behaviors.fyi: i stumbled on another tragic documentary yrs ago on PBS late one night, it is now posted on Vimeo: i highly recommend: "Unless a Death Occurs" by Anjalika Sharma. hazing death at Plattsburgh State. it gives a good comparison for how "active" an interview type documentary might be.

A documentary by David Turnley, "Shenandoah" observes as a gang of Pennsylvanian youths, all members of a High School football team, assault and kill Luis Suarez, a Mexican teenager.Issues of race are immediately delved into. Shenandoah is a small town, closely knit, and low wages and hard times have left locals seething with anger. Immigrants, illegal or otherwise, are seen as a threat. More than a threat, immigrants are deemed "not human". "I didn't think of him as a person," one of the killers admits.Turnley then takes us to the football field. Here, young men are indoctrinated, hypermasculinized, dubious notions of manhood, power, aggression, gender, sexuality, race and nationhood instilled. To be a "man", one must win, one must dominate, one must crush. Crush what? Anything deemed feminine, deemed Other, deemed different, deemed weak. But whilst the mastering of violence as a necessary test of masculinity (and eventually patriotism) once led to young men being shipped abroad to kill the Other – foreigners deemed subhuman and soft – now the Other is in one's own backyard. The killing happens here, on home soil.Studies have shown that young men who are members of certain school sports teams are twice as likely to abuse their dating partners. The term "hyper-masculine identity disorder" is itself increasingly entering gender identity disorder indices. The purported symptoms of this "disorder" are an overly inflated sense of entitlement, a propensity for violent outbursts (physical, sexual or verbal), homophobia, bigotry, the belief that all things "feminine" are inferior, emotional detachedness, feelings of inadequacy, a disregard for others, hyper-nationalism, obsessions with physical strength and a propensity toward risky behaviour and/or extreme competitiveness.It's thus fitting that one of the film's subplots contrasts the testosterone of the football field with the more placid arenas of school theatre halls. Here, one of the killers sings, hops, skips and acts on stage. Before the murder, he'd probably have been mocked for indulging in such a hobby.As the perpetrators were local football stars, Luis Suarez's murder – more a symbolic gang rape – was quickly covered up by local police officers. They deliberately botched the investigation, but activists and several upstanding townsfolk ensured that the crime wasn't suppressed. Climaxing powerfully with Bruce Springsteen's "Lift Me Up", "Shenandoah" ends with some semblance of justice, and the hope that further progress will one day be made.8/10 – See the haunting documentary, "Murder on a Sunday Morning".

This amazing and rewarding documentary is one that will not fail to move you. It tells the story of the brutal, racially motivated killing of Mexican Luis Suarez. The assailants were all members of the High Scholl football team and had been drinking. They chased him down and kicked him to death.In this small close knit town all the locals know each other and so the police colluded to ensure there was a cover up. What director David Turnley has done here is allow both sides to have their say – that is those that were willing to appear on camera. This is non judgmental and allows the viewer to make up their own minds. It is a very moving and gripping story and raises issues of racism, truth, honour and justice. I watch a few documentaries bit am no way near a fan, but if they were all of a calibre such as this then I would quite quickly become an addict – absolutely recommended.