It's a vivid and gripping documentary (although, at two hours, somewhat longer than it needs to be), a grave indictment of a city and a system at the breaking point.
The Central Park Five
2012 · 1h 59m · NOT RATED
Documentary
Directed by
Sarah Burns
,
Ken Burns
Overview
In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, this is the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Expect your blood pressure to rise during The Central Park Five.
The doc is rife with smart or wrenching or shameful moments. The fresh interviews with the accused, now men, are invaluable.
As grim a portrait of the criminal justice system as can be imagined.
How could this second crime have occurred? The film asks that question but only partly answers it, and in the process it raises an even more troubling one.
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