West of Memphis (2012)
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Reviews Counted: 111
Fresh: 106 | Rotten: 5
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 26
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 3
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 6,767
Movie Info
From director Amy Berg, in collaboration with first time Producers Damien Echols and Lorri Davis along with filmmakers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh comes West of Memphis, a powerful examination of a catastrophic failure of justice in Arkansas. The documentary tells the hitherto unknown story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light. Told and made by those who lived it, Berg's unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense, allows the film to show the
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Cast
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Damien Wayne Echols
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Jason Baldwin
Jason Baldwin -
Jessie Misskelley Jr...
Jessie Misskelley Jr... -
Lorri Davis
Lorri Davis -
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson -
Eddie Vedder
Eddie Vedder -
Henry Rollins
Henry Rollins -
Natalie Maines
Natalie Maines -
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Jessie Miskelly
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Pam Hobbs
Pam Hobbs -
Lorris Davis
Lorris Davis
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West of Memphis Trailer & Photos
All Critics (111) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (106) | Rotten (5)
It's not a new story, true, but "West of Memphis" makes it both extremely personal and universally painful.
Top CriticWe feel like we're watching an overlong true-crime television episode and not a movie.
A real-life horror story, made no less shocking by the familiarity of its early scenes.
While the "Paradise Lost" films captured events as they unfolded in the heat of battle, "West of Memphis" has the luxury of at least partial closure.
A true-crime story that begins with a notorious murder case and grows into a chilling indictment of the American justice system.
And justice for all? Hardly.
A documentary that distills 19 years of a witch hunt, a grass roots movement, lost leads, confusion, countless appeals, and hope into one remarkable movie that is hellbent on setting the record straight.
It effectively condenses what took the 'Paradise Lost' films nearly eight hours to reveal into a tight, snappy 149 minutes that affords you everything you need to know about the West Memphis Three.
It's another case where, instead of a prosecution having to prove a case, a defendant has to choose the lesser of two evils. "This happens all the time," defendant Damien Echols says of the whole process, and he's right.
A sobering look at how the wheels of justice can be -- and are -- manipulated by political expediency and a small town's tendrils of the old boy network
The film is so utterly transfixing you won't believe almost two-and-a-half hours have passed when the final credits roll.
I would have preferred Jackson's clinically-presented project display a bit more reverence for the three young lives that were brutally taken some twenty years ago.
Moving and gruesome, West of Memphis is an eloquent disquisition on the banality of evil.
"West of Memphis" re-examines evidence and retells the story in a methodical and procedural fashion in which even the false steps lead somewhere.
More a recap and appendix to the Paradise Lost trilogy... one can't help but feel that the celebrities involved needed this document of their efforts to appease their vanity.
The case is more intriguing than the film about it.
Isn't unnecessary, but it's often superfluous.
The film suggests these powerless, poorly educated young men were scapegoated because they would be missed by nobody of importance -- the justice system equivalent of the cannon fodder recruited from the same socioeconomic straits.
It's nice to have all the twists and turns of the iconic case contained tidily in one well-crafted film, although there are no real revelations here.
"West of Memphis" becomes a greatest-hits concert of prosecutorial misconduct, and you'll agree when the film asserts that prosecutors knew they had the wrong guys.
Incredibly, after three documentaries on the subject, there are still things to reveal about the West Memphis Three.
Audience Reviews for West of Memphis
Super Reviewer
The bulk of the focus of this film in particular is on the innocence of the three young men accused and jailed for the crime. We take a look at the whole case and where it went very wrong from the beginning. It's a chilling tale of a witch hunt that landed these teens in prison for nearly two decades.
I highly recommend if you liked the work done in the Paradise Lost series of documentary films that brought world wide attention to this case.
Super Reviewer
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