The Central Park Five Reviews
The Patriot Ledger
The filmmakers do a tremendous job of setting the mood and mind-set of New Yorkers in the spring of 1989, when violent crime was rampant and the Big Apple was rotting to the core.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
Blu-ray.com
Burns and Co. once again nail the complexity of history with traditionally eye-opening results, yet The Central Park Five isn't quite as comprehensive as hoped, capping such profound pain with a few nagging question marks.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Top CriticIt'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.
Kansas City Star
The Central Park Five takes one of the most sensational crimes of the late 20th century and strips the circus that followed down to its roots. The horrific attack in the woods on that April night 24 years ago was just the beginning.
HollywoodChicago.com
The Central Park Five," the second best documentary of 2013, examines the case, placing in perfect context of what was happening in 1989 in NYC and how it led to evil both in Central Park and in the offices of the people trying to keep us safe.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Like the "Paradise Lost" films, it's a shocking but clear-eyed portrait of injustice.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Paste Magazine
The Central Park Five is such a moving piece of work, it is difficult to watch at times.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8.3/10
Laramie Movie Scope
It shows what happens when police and prosecutors abuse their power.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
Expect your blood pressure to rise during The Central Park Five.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
The doc is rife with smart or wrenching or shameful moments. The fresh interviews with the accused, now men, are invaluable.
NOW Toronto
Burns and company conduct a thorough, riveting investigation that does a far better job of assessing the tragedy than the justice system did two decades before. Of course, hindsight is an advantage we all take for granted.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Screen International
It's a gripping story that comes in a well-crafted package.
AALBC.com
A heartbreaking expose' about a rush to judgment which ruined five, innocent young lives.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
New York Press
Exclusive interviews with former heads of Israel's counter terrorism agency reveal insiders' analysis about the country's policies. Fascinating. Frightening.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
As grim a portrait of the criminal justice system as can be imagined.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"The Central Park Five" is a sobering indictment of racism and vigilante justice, yet it is constrained by a PBS-style deference to the very system it critiques.
"The Central Park Five" is worth seeing, both for the ways it's timeless and for the ways it encapsulates an era.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Oregonian
You can't help but wonder why this film wasn't made 20 years ago, when it could have saved these men some time behind bars.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
