Review – Reckless Indifference

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the point of this documentary is to make us feel a sense of righteous indignation at the life sentences handed to four teenagers convicted of felony murder. The group tried to bully a couple of pothead acquaintances out of their stash, and when they wouldn’t cough it up without a fight one of the bullies stabbed them. One of the victims died. It was just their dumb luck that the father of the boy they murdered was an L.A. cop, which of course meant that they actually got prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And the only real defense this movie seems prepared to offer is that this doesn’t happen to everyone who kills somebody in the course of a robbery, so it shouldn’t have happened to them. As many problems as our legal system has, and this mess is the “injustice” I’m supposed to be losing sleep over? The thing that galled me the most about this production is the overpowering sense that I’m expected to feel sorry for them because they’re white kids from the burbs and if they were from the inner city they wouldn’t have been treated like this. There are so many things wrong with this theory that I can’t even begin to discuss them. Wish I’d skipped it