Strong Island (2017) Reviews

• Great documentary

  abdallahoc-615932017-09-19

  The whole point of this documentary is to humanize the victim and show the viewers the human side of this story. It just baffles me how some people here couldn't grasp this simple emotional-based point. We do need more of this kind of documentaries for us to feel each other's pain.

• Why do this?

  bijou-22018-02-14

  Slow, prodding, and full of false assumptions. This lazy documentary is full of repetitious and false narratives that never make it's point. Character after character repeats themselves in slow boring detail, while adding nothing to the narrative. Was he a good man? Yes, he was a good man. Pause..., pause..... He was indeed a good man. He was a very fine good man. Pause....snore, wait, ... He was so good. He was pause, pause, pause .......good. He did some good things....he did not help rob the ATM man. That was never proven.... He was my brother and by the way, he was a good man, except when he was throwing vacuum cleaners and car doors around in order to threaten others. I admired him then... pause. My bad.... pause...........Oh, and by the way, I am a lesbian and he was nice to me, so there!? Did the main character, a 260 pound overweight black male, scare a chop shop white criminal into shooting him dead in self defense after being assaulted once before? I was not on the Grand Jury but, after seeing this film, I would would say "yes!".

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• YouTube not Netflix

  chrisharrey2017-09-20

  Unfortunately this was painted to be a compelling story of mis-justice that was then solved or at least contested but it was nothing more than a diary or almost autobiography of someone we'd never heard of. The constant reference to Racism in the families past was almost building up to some sort of mis-justice due to race or color but that didn't seem to be the case. There was parts talking about the struggle of coming to terms with sexuality and growing up which seemed completely irrelevant to the confusing story line that zigzagged at the speed of a snail. Don't get my wrong its a sad story, no one should be murdered and no one should have to deal with a death in family but I just couldn't help but feel this documentary was almost the director/producers way of dealing with it rather than it shedding any light on a given subject. This was almost a professionally shot YouTube video certainly not fit for mainstream Netflix.

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• Loss, love and injustice

  michelegrey2017-09-21

  Anybody who has read the synopsis knows this documentary is about the killing of young black man by a white man who was never convicted of his murder. It's the story of a family and friends still dealing with the grief, the loss and most of all, the injustice and inability to do anything about it. It's heartbreaking and their strength in dealing with the injustice is to be admired. The outcome of a white man walking free for murdering a black man in 1992 is hardly surprising and it should give everyone pause that it's still not surprising today, 25 years later. It's not an easy film but it's a worthwhile film.

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• I wanted this to be The Thin Blue Line

  ryanlaurencecole2018-02-11

  I wanted this to be The Thin Blue Line. It wasn't. That's a pretty high bar for a doc. I was probably being unfair. But I was disappointed. The families rage at the murder of their son/brother came through. But the story of what happened didn't. It just felt like rage. Understandable, but not what I want in a doc.