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When Jake LaMotta steps into a boxing ring and obliterates his opponent, he's a prizefighter. But when he treats his family and friends the same way, he's a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any moment. Though LaMotta wants his family's love, something always seems to come between them. Perhaps it's his violent bouts of paranoia and jealousy. This kind of rage helped make him a champ, but in real life, he winds up in the ring alone.

"Raging Bull" isn't the average, stereotypical underdog boxing movie, because it isn't really about boxing at all. Like most great movies, its focus is much deeper. It came out in 1980, earned Robert De Niro a Best Actor Academy Award, and was marked down as another solid triumph by director Martin Scorsese, whose previous 1976 outing with De Niro earned them both critical acclaim (and for De Niro, an Oscar nomination, although he would actually earn an Oscar for "Raging Bull" four years later).

It dwindled in production hell for quite some time, with Scorsese's drug use halting production and only the duo's strong willpower that kept the project moving ahead. It was after De Niro read boxer Jake LaMotta's memoirs that he knew he wanted to make the film, so Scorsese and De Niro turned to Paul Schrader for a script. Schrader, who had previously written "Taxi Driver" (1976), agreed, and wrote the screenplay for them. The rest is history.

"Raging Bull" has often been regarded as the greatest film of the 80s. To be honest, I'm not so sure about that, since various genres offer different feelings and emotions (comparing this to a comedy might seem rather silly). But to say it is one of the most powerful films of all time would be no gross overstatement -- it is superb film-making at its finest.

De Niro gained 60 pounds to play LaMotta, which was an all-time record at the time (later beaten by Vincent D'Onofrio, who gained 70 pounds for Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket"). His physical transformation is on-par with any great screen makeover, especially the most recent, ranging from Willem Dafoe in "Shadow of the Vampire" to Charlize Theron in "Monster." In addition, co-star Joe Pesci also lost weight for his role of Joey, LaMotta's short, eccentric brother. The greatest scene in the film is when LaMotta accuses his brother of having an affair with his wife. The tension is raw, the dialogue amazing, and the overall intensity electrifying.

The film is most often compared to "Rocky," more than any other, apparently because they both concern a certain level of boxing. As much as I absolutely adore "Rocky," "Raging Bull" is a deeper, more realistic film. But whereas "Raging Bull" is raw, "Rocky" is inspiring, and that is one of the reasons I do not think these two very different motion pictures deserve comparison, for the simple fact that they are entirely separate from one another. The only connecting thread is the apparently central theme of boxing, which is used as a theme in "Rocky," and a backdrop in "Raging Bull." They're entirely different motion pictures -- one uplifting, the other somewhat depressing -- and the people who try to decide which is better need to seriously re-evaluate their reasons for doing so. They both succeed splendidly well at what they are trying to do, and that's all I have to say about their so-called connection.

De Niro, who could justifiably be called the greatest actor of all time, is at the top of his game here. In "Taxi Driver" he displayed a top-notch performance. He wasn't just playing Travis Bickle -- he was Travis Bickle. And here he is Jake LaMotta, the infamous boxer known for his abusive life style and somewhat paranoid delusions during his reign as world middleweight boxing champion, 1949 - 1951. Throughout the film, he beats his wife (played expertly and convincingly by the 19-year-old Cathy Moriarty), convinced that she is cheating on him, and that is more or less what the film is truly about. The boxing is just what he does for a living, and could be considered as a way to release some of his deeper, harbored anger.

LaMotta has a close relationship with Joey, his brother, and their interaction is often what elevates the film above others of its genre. The dialogue is great, close to the perfection of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction," rich in that rapid-fire filthy language and brutal insults. Pesci, who was on the verge of quitting showbiz at the time of pre-production, was spotted by De Niro in a cheap B-movie named "The Death Collector" (1975), a.k.a. "Family Business," a truly horrid film that nevertheless showcased an early sign of things to come for Pesci. De Niro wanted him for the movie and his premonition was either very lucky or very wise -- this is one of the best performances of Pesci's entire career.

Scorsese shot the film in muted black and white, portraying a certain era of depression and misery. To make the blood show up on screen during the occasional fight scenes, Scorsese used Hershey's Syrup -- which is an interesting tidbit of trivia for any aspiring film-making planning on filming a violent movie in black and white. But how often does that happen?

This is certainly one of the most intense films Scorsese has directed, and one of the most important of his career. Along with "Taxi Driver," it is an iconic motion picture that will stand the test of time for years and years to come. 

Scorsese and De Niro's partnership over the years has resulted in some of the most influential and utterly amazing motion pictures of all time: "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," "The King of Comedy," "Goodfellas" and "Casino" come to mind almost instantly. But perhaps the one single title that will be remembered as their most daring effort is "Raging Bull," a motion picture so utterly exhilarating that it defies description. It is simply a masterpiece for the mind and senses, leaving you knocked out cold after its brutal one-two punch. If I had to assemble a list of required viewing, this would be up there towards the top.

Reveals the events behind Kurt Cobain's death as seen through the eyes of Tom Grant, the private investigator that was hired by Courtney Love in 1994 to track down her missing husband (Kurt Cobain) only days before his deceased body was found at their Seattle home. Cobain's death was ruled a suicide by the police (a reported self-inflicted gunshot wound), but doubts have circulated for twenty years as to the legitimacy of this ruling, especially due to the work of Mr. Grant, a former L.A. County Sheriff's detective, who did his own investigation and determined there was significant empirical and circumstantial evidence to conclude that foul play could very well have occurred. The film develops as a narrative mystery with cinematic re-creations, interviews with key experts and witnesses and the examination of official artifacts from the 1994 case. 

Look at the stats and you'll see that people are giving bad reviews (1 stars) on this film 100 at a time. Sounds like an automated campaign to me. This started before the film was even released on 6/11. Courtney Love is also trying to intimidate cinemas from showing this film by having her attorneys send threatening letters. Most are ignoring her threats.

There is so much information in this documentary you'll need to watch it more than once to catch it all. I've watched this film several times and I constantly pick up new info. 

Based on Tom Grant's actual recordings, case files, and observations during the days leading up to Cobain's death, this film takes painstaking steps to ensure accuracy. Thorough the use of actual recordings, you will hear Courtney Love explain how she easily lies to manipulate the press. Although she hires Tom on April 3rd (Easter Sunday) to try to find her missing husband, she conveniently leaves out critical information (he was seen by their nanny at his own house on April 2nd). She has Grant search everywhere except their house until April 6th. Love is clearly obstructing the investigation, keeping Grant away from the house until she is ready for him to look there. Why?

Includes police reports and interviews with expert forensic scientists and medical examiners across the country. The physical evidence suggests another person in the room as Cobain could not have pulled the trigger with the level of heroin in his system. The shotgun shell isn't where it should be. And, Love and Cobain were in the midst of a divorce. The film also includes comments from the former Seattle Chief of Police, Norm Stamper, who says, "If I were the Chief today, I would reopen this investigation." 

Watch this film and make your own decision. What really happened to Kurt Cobain in April, 1994?

Locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo brothers learn about the outside world through the films that they watch. Nicknamed, 'The Wolfpack,' the brothers spend their childhood reenacting their favorite films using elaborate homemade props and costumes. Their world is shaken up when one of the brothers escapes and everything changes.

In Wolfpack, winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Award (2015), the Angulo family is indeed alone and secluded from its environment. Secluded in their Lower Eastside of Manhattan apartment, the 6 children have rarely gone outside because father deems New York too dangerous. That's not the exceptional part of this odd-ball documentary.

The WOW factor is that the kids have grown up relatively unscathed by their isolation. Their saving grace has been their movie addiction, wherein they re-enact scenes from famous films such as Reservoir Dogs and The Dark Knight. Although we don't actually see them filming, we do watch them create ingenious costumes and devise tableaux to emphasize the drama, albeit fictional, found outside their cramped world. As in the recent Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, young people are turning to movies for their societal awareness and outlet for their creative impulses. It could be much worse.

That's all there is, Folks. First-time helmer Crystal Moselle doesn't allow much more depth, for instance on what makes their strong but not particularly articulate father, who gave his children Sanskrit names, do the things he does like imprisoning his kids to avoid their ruin from the streets of New York. Or why mom has been mostly withdrawn yet loving. However as in Grey Gardens, we are privileged observers without restraint, a virtue in documentary film making.

It's just that beyond the cardboard box Batman costumes and impressive toy guns, not much else happens. Perhaps it's the Seinfeld "about nothing" motif but only without Jerry's wit.

An authorized documentary on the late musician Kurt Cobain, from his early days in Aberdeen, Washington to his success and downfall with the grunge band Nirvana.

I'm not sure why this is being touted as "the definitive documentary" on Kurdt's life. It basically skims over most of the important events which can be found in more detail in Heavier Than Heaven. Several key players in his life are left out of this documentary completely. There are some unseen videos of him as a small child, but the concert footage is mostly stuff that can be found on previously released Nirvana DVDs. There's also a big deal made of showing us his journals, but his journals were already published in 2002. 

And then there's Courtney Love. She isn't mentioned at all until halfway through the documentary, but after that point, she shares most of Kurt's screen time. There are several home videos of them goofing around and being silly together and playing with Frances, which gives the impression that their entire relationship was a bed of roses, even though most of those close to the couple have said the opposite over the years. The only hint this documentary gives of their marital troubles is toward the end when Courtney says Kurt killed himself because she *considered* cheating on him (she doesn't admit to actually doing it). The other big problem here is Kurt's parents. I've never much liked them after reading Come As You Are and Heavier Than Heaven and watching this documentary made me really angry at them. It's clear that they agreed to do this not to help shed light on Kurt's life but to save face and try to bury the fact that they screwed up their son's life in a very big way. I mean, they're more than willing to point the finger at each other, such as when Wendy brings up how emotionally abusive Don was to Kurt or Don pointing out that Wendy "couldn't handle" Kurt but they only tear the other down to make themselves look better. 

Oh and don't even get me started on Don's second wife (Kurt's stepmom) Jenny. She's still maintaining her narrative that Kurt was just a bad boy who acted out for no reason even though she was soooooo nice to him. Funny how the director didn't feel it was necessary to include Leland's (Kurt's grandfather) testimony that after Don married Jenny, he showed preferential treatment to Jenny's kids over Kurt, almost as if he was afraid Jenny would leave him like Wendy had. As for Jenny, I have no doubt that she treated her own kids better than Kurt since they were hers after all. The more I look at it, the more MoH seems like a whitewashing campaign launched by Kurt's family to try to absolve themselves of any responsibility for screwing up their child's formative years. 

In January 2013, Laura Poitras started receiving anonymous encrypted e-mails from "CITIZENFOUR," who claimed to have evidence of illegal covert surveillance programs run by the NSA in collaboration with other intelligence agencies worldwide. Five months later, she and reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with the man who turned out to be Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her. The resulting film is history unfolding before our eyes.

I thought Citizenfour was quite powerful as a humanizing portrayal of Snowden. I didn't learn anything new particularly about NSA programs, since I've been reading each story I come across, but the film quite effectively transported me into Snowden's hotel room in Hong Kong and into conversations with Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras and MacAskill. Snowden comes off as a completely responsible, quite sincere, thoughtful young man. He very clearly and explicitly says that he does not want to be the story, and one believes him. Whereas Assange can impress people as narcissistic and Bradley/Chelsea Manning's sexual confusion was only one of a number of facets which distracted from Cablegate, Snowden sounds like a young Ellsberg – very intelligent and well-spoken.

Poitras's style was interesting, I thought. The camera a number of times holds for lengthy periods on fairly static shots of architecture, which served to impress the viewer with the monolithic, pervasive nature of the NSA's networks. There's a long disorienting shot out the window of a train at night or going through a tunnel, which draws you into the dark network Snowden's revealing.

The film successfully touches on a number of different aspects of the surveillance state, bringing in the idea that when we talk about "privacy" we're talking about security, about our constitutional right to freedom from unlawful search and seizure. I think this is a hard sell for too many viewers. I don't fault the film here. I saw it with a friend who was a few minutes late because she was watching the Giants' game. In discussing the movie afterward she questioned just how important some of the issues raised were. Greenwald and others speak passionately about the dangers of the surveillance state, but my date pointed out that she can't feel much fear that the NSA is going to be breaking down her door because of anything she's said on the phone or in e-mail. My own experience is that friends and colleagues on the one hand self-censor and don't mention politics, drugs, Bittorrent use, etc. in e-mail or social media for fear of the all-knowing eye, or on the other hand seem oblivious to any danger – why worry about Google programmatically reading every single e-mail sent or received, if it means free e-mail and potentially more accurate search results when shopping? Snowden at one point convincingly says he doesn't think it is possible for anyone no matter how brilliant and educated to individually fight all the electronic surveillance systems in existence. We're told of the multitude of methods of surveillance and repeatedly shown NSA officials blatantly lying to Congress about their existence. The lack of accountability for this last has been personally troubling to me – I remember Watergate and Iran-Contra – how is it that the heads of the NSA can with impunity flat out lie to Congress about spying on American citizens? What will viewers come away with when walking out of the theater after Citizenfour? I'm wondering how many will see it as a call to action, and how many as a well-executed depiction of Edward Snowden's experience, which may not be seen as intersecting our own.

A devastating two hour documentary based on Lawrence Wright's book of the same name. Scientology is laid bare by a film that skilfully knits together archive footage, testimonials from former high ranking officials and public, and dramatic reconstructions.

I moved to Hollywood in 1989. My first experience with Scientology rank-and-file was seeing crowds of Sea Org teenagers milling about Hollywood Boulevard in their fake naval uniforms. I was like, what is this? The Navy docked in port? Uh, no, the port's 25 miles away. Halloween is two weeks away, so what is the costume party all about? Scientology had a lot more members then, so there were dozens of these people wandering around, trying to look important and accomplished. All of them probably under 20 years old. They all looked like children playing dress up. I just smirked and shook my head. It was a combination of hatred and sadness that I felt for these poor children. Many times later on, passing the by the Scientology "Testing Center," I got hit up on the sidewalk for a free "personality test," or maybe it was a "stress test" by that point, I can't remember. I took one look at the zombie-like girl with the plastered smile, and just laughed. I wanted to tell her, I see right through your lousy sales technique. That smile is not real. You're miserable. You're trying to sell books and register new members and are failing miserably. I wish I could have helped her. I wish I could have told her, you know, it's okay to be grumpy. It's okay not to smile 100& of the time. We're all humans and we have emotions. That's just how it is. I can see somebody being grumpy especially doing the job that you're doing. You think Scientology works somehow? You're trying to audit away your emotions? That means you're attempting to audit away your humanity.

Years later, I started running into several books laying bare the psychosis of L. Ron Hubbard and his army (sorry, navy) of hypnotized, brainwashed robots. Then I started to get mad. Mad that this organized fraud mafia masquerading as a religion existed and there was apparently no way anyone could prosecute them for their crimes. Then, when the internet became a thing, the word began to spread far and wide about the ongoing criminal activities of Scientology. Human trafficking, kidnapping, slave labor, espionage, wholesale fraud, negligent homicide.

With Going Clear, the true facts about Scientology are going to be revealed to the public at large. Many people watch HBO. The scales are going to fall from their eyes. So many people in the public probably don't think much about Scientology, and if they do, they think of it as that wacky alien worshipping, e-meter using religion that Tom Cruise belongs to. This film will change that perception. There are a lot of shocking facts here, and Oscar winning documentary film director Alex Gibney delivers them in a stunning presentation. The film just flew by. I was on the edge of my seat for a lot of it, and I knew most of the story.

Just to add, as a long time Scientology watcher, very little of this was new information to me. But the way that Gibney presents things using the language of film is powerful and engrossing. For people not versed in the subject, this is a fantastic primer on the madness that is Scientology. The approach of having people tell their personal stories, mixed in with archival footage, really humanizes the film.

Gibney has a lot of ground to cover. He takes a look at the life story of L. Ron Hubbard, a lot of his lies and crimes, the founding and rise of the Church of Scientology, Hubbard's death and the dictatorship since that time of one David Miscavige. The film also explicitly calls out the two highest profile Scientologists, John Travolta and Tom Cruise, and accuses them of culpability in the large range of abuses that the Church perpetrates on their low level staff, who get paid 60 cents an hour.

There are just so many bizarre tales, wacky stories, unbelievable occurrences, that a two hour movie is not enough. But it is a stunning introduction that touches on a majority of the important points. The life of L. Ron Hubbard alone could be great material for a lengthy TV series lasting several seasons about the long strange life of a sociopath, at least as watchable as Breaking Bad if not more so, except the stories would all be true events that actually happened.

If you are one of those people that dismiss Scientology as just a bunch of harmless idiots, I urge you to watch this film and get the real story of what a dangerous, power mad organization Scientology really is. You won't regret spending the two hours.

A documentary about the life and legend Nina Simone, an American singer, pianist, and civil rights activist labeled the "High Priestess of Soul."

"What Happened, Miss Simone?" is a documentary that premiered on Netflix on June 26, 2015. It's about the life and times of singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone.

Using a vast array of archival footage and interviews with Miss Simone and those who knew her, the movie, Directed by Liz Garbus, paints an interesting picture of this singular talent. She started playing piano at four and performing in church at revivals, when she wanted to be the first black classical pianist to play professionally, music schools wouldn't take her - just because of the color of her skin. Nina went on to playing jazz in clubs and her unique style drew attention. She soon met her husband and manager Andrew Stroud - from there her life was filled with great heights and shattering lows. Nina's diary entries talked about spousal abuse, how she suffered from manic depression and how with her constant touring took a tole on her, saying she was being "worked like a dog" by her husband.

Things changed in 1963 when four little girls where killed in a racially instigated church bombing in Alabama. Nina wrote "Mississippi Goddamn" as a response and from then dedicated herself to civil rights for black Americans. This hurt her career commercially - a Harlem concert in 1969 with her singing "are you ready to smash white things, to kill if you have to" is very telling of the scorn and anger she felt against discrimination she had witnessed her whole life, as well as her passion for change.

The movie is a candid and honest telling of Nina's life, and in a revealing scene her daughter Lisa reveals that she was abused by her mother during their time living in Africa.

Nina Simone is a complex and fascinating woman, and this movie is a very revealing look at her life. It has enough interesting concert and interview footage from the fifties to the eighties to satiate returning fans, as well as give viewers new to her music the definitive look at the life of the "High Priestess of Soul"

For the last 40 years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever-changing humanity. He has witnessed some of the major events of our recent history; international conflicts, starvation and exodus. He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of wild fauna and flora, and of grandiose landscapes as part of a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty.

Wim Wenders being Wim Wenders, he has nothing left to prove about movie making. So most of this documentary is simply made by the pictures of Sebastião Salgado, and by close-ups of his face: he is looking at the images (but through the screen at the same time), while telling and explaining to the audience the genesis and the reasons of his work. It is very simple, yes, but at the same time it's extremely powerful. So powerful that, after a while, I was under the impression that those still b/w images were alive: crowds in the mass scenes seemed to move, people in portraits looked like they were going to turn their heads, and talk.

This movie should be shown in schools. The work of Salgado has testified some of the major (but lesser known) disasters of recent world history, none of which came within ear of the western world - much more interested in the brilliant lives of the fashion victims than in the tragic fate of the casualties of famines and wars.

Nietzsche famously once wrote: "When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you". Salgado had the guts to stare to the abyss, without blinking - but clicking. He did it to give to others the opportunity to know, and possibly to better understand the meaning of the term "humanity". Some of Sebastião Salgado images are horrible, but it is by far more horrible to think that without him those horrors would have happened with nobody to remember about them. His work creates grounds for memory, and memory grows some chances for hope, and hope give us and some reason to believe in a better future for our troubled planet.

This powerful portrait of the life and career of great American music icon Glen Campbell opens to the viewer the world of the singular talent who created hits like Rhinestone Cowboy, Wichita Lineman and Gentle on My Mind. Winner of the Grammy for Lifetime Achievement and member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Glen was the first country music star to cross over to the pop charts, opening a new realm of opportunity for generations of country musicians. In 2011, when Campbell was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, he joined forces with his family to fight the biggest battle of his life. Glen and his wife, Kim, made history by going public with the diagnosis - the first time a major American celebrity would share this experience with the world. The Campbell family then embarked on a short "Goodbye Tour," but the three-week engagement turned into an emotional and triumphant 151-show nationwide tour de force. This epic human drama about the undying bond between Glen and Kim, and their ... 

I wanted to make just a brief comment on how much I enjoyed the documentary on Glen Campbell, but because of the ridiculous guidelines, I'm forced to write at least 10 lines....absurd! Takes too much of my time, please rewrite the guidelines, if you want more reviews.

I disagree with the first reviewer, Cherold. He's exceptionally picky! I enjoyed every minute of the movie. Obviously, Cherold hasn't had to deal with this issue personally. I have, so it's nice to see that it's getting political attention...even if it's politicians that I disagree with and thankfully are no longer in power.

I just watched the Documentary on CNN tonight. Thank you to Lilly, CNN, and the Campbell family for bringing it to our living rooms! What a sweet and touching story about Glen Campbell's struggles with Alzheimer's disease. It's nice to see the loving, compassionate care his family and friends are helping him to remember, even though he can't. It's amazing how his musical talent and wit endures while other memories are lost. It's very insightful to see how certain minds deal with the disease. At least he seems happy with a positive attitude. Glen is being Glen, just with a forgotten past. The music is so touching.

I think this is a must see for Glen's fans or anyone caring for loved ones with memory issues.

A physician in Michoacán, Mexico leads a citizen uprising against the drug cartel that has wrecked havoc on the region for years. Across the U.S. border, a veteran heads a paramilitary group working to prevent Mexico's drug wars from entering U.S. territory.

Greetings again from the darkness - from the Dallas International Film Festival. Even in this digital age where information exists from all sides of a conflict … often with corresponding video, the general public somehow remains complacent to issues that don't directly and obviously affect their lifestyle. Skilled documentarian Matthew Heineman ignores the rhetoric of political speeches and plops the war against drug cartels right into our lap.

This is a different approach to a topic with which we are all at least somewhat familiar. The involved parties include the affected communities (in Mexico and Arizona), the governments and affiliated agencies (DEA, Border Patrol), the ever-expanding vigilante groups of citizens (Arizona Border Recon, AutoDefensas), and of course the cartels (focus on Knights Templar).

Intimacy is the key here, as Mr. Heineman takes us inside these groups with an up-close look at leaders. Especially fascinating is Dr. Mireles who is the face of the AutoDefensas – a group he pledges will protect communities from the cartels, who clearly have no regard for human life. The film doesn't shy away from the expected issues: citizen pushback, greed, abuse of power, and corruption. As AutoDefensas teams with the Mexican government to create the Rural Defense Force, we can't help but wonder if the rumors of differing goals are at play in the drug battles. Citizens want safety, but what is it that the government wants? Is the goal drug-free streets or is it a cut of the action.

Learning how desperate the vigilantes are to protect their homes, turf and way of life, we are left with little doubt of their mission. It's everyone else that we must keep questioning and holding accountable. This is not an easy documentary to watch, but it's necessary if you have previously lost interest as the next politician proclaims he will continue "the war on drugs".

This feature-doc tells the epic story of the Faberge name, from Imperial Russia until the present-day, spanning one hundred and fifty years of turbulent history, romance, artistic development and commercial exploitation. From the bejewel led Easter eggs of the Romanov Tsarinas to the 1970s allure of 'Brut by Faberge' aftershave, and from the Russian revolution to today's high-fashion glitz in New York and London, the film explores a multi-faceted world that began with one man: the prodigiously talented Peter Carl Faberge, Court Jeweler of St Petersburg. Shot at locations across Russia, Europe and USA (including the collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II), the film features interview contributions from the world's foremost Faberge authorities, as well as personal reminiscences from Faberge family members.

A documentary centered on a young man in Spain who claims to a grieving Texas family that he is their 16-year-old son who has been missing for 3 years.

This is the documentary, of the many I saw during the Perth Revelation Film Festival 2012, that has stuck to my memory, and the one that fascinated me the most.

The documentary revolves about the vanishing of a 13y.o boy, Nicholas Barclay, for his home in Texas in 1993, to be found in Spain with an apparent amnesia six years later. What happens after the young man call the Spanish Police is the core of the film.

The movie mixes interviews with the protagonist Frédéric Bourdin, Nicholas' family, American FBI and Consular officials, and has very atmospheric re-enactments done with Spanish actors and settings narrating the events occurred in Spain. The story is build up like in a thriller, and it will keep you glued to the screen, wanting to know what is going to happen next.

Layton has given the documentary the tone of a mystery movie in the re-enactments, but also in the interviews through the use of the chiaroscuro, camera positioning, hues of the film, and the tempo and way the events are presented - everything serves to build up suspense and mystery, and make you doubt and question yourself. Is this a real documentary or a mockumentary? Are we being fooled? The story is fascinating and amazing per se, but the way it is presented, is marvelous from a cinematic point of view as lets the viewer munch on a few philosophical themes: self-identity, reality and perception of reality, the connection between emotion and perception, and the use of cinematic narratives in documentaries based on real events, among other things.

One of the main downs of the movie is that Nicholas' family is somewhat ridiculed and vilified for the sake of the storyline. After all, we need of good, bad, stupid and clever characters in a story to create an interesting film. In the first place they are portrayed as ignoramuses; however, they are a suburban family living in a poor area of the USA, with little or none education; you cannot expect much of any person grown in this social environment anywhere in the world. In the second place, they are ridiculed for failing to detach themselves from their emotions and see something really obvious for the spectator; however its a characteristic of human nature and behavior to attach emotion to our thoughts and to interpret what we see according to our own personal individual viewfinder. We do so, all of us, every single day, in our daily lives, so you cannot expect traumatized and emotional people to see things as clearly as we see them from our seat in the cinema. In the third place, the movie implicitly blames the family, by letting some of the characters doing so, for the vanishing of Nicholas, without providing any evidence for it.

Still, this is a terrific documentary. The less you know about the whole story at the beginning, the more you will enjoy it. This is a documentary that attracts people to the genre because reinvents it. A proof that a documentary can be amazing, intriguing, entertaining, and thought provoking.

Salon Pictures' feature documentary about the maverick soccer player Paul Gascoigne, known both for his sublime soccer skills on the pitch and his self-destructive behavior off the field. "Gascoigne," which is directed by Jane Preston ("Graffiti Wars"), and produced by Salon's Nick Taussig and Paul Van Carter, is built around an extensive interview with Gascoigne, and accompanied by archive material showing career highlights, and interviews with those who knew him, and those he played with or against. Gascoigne rose from poverty-stricken beginnings in North-East England to forge a stellar career with a ferocious free kick and the ability to dribble past entire teams. The film is not only a sports biographical documentary, but also a "compelling narrative-driven character study and cinematic portrayal of infamy."

Now a days when we hear the name 'Paul Gascoigne' buzz words enter our head to fit the meaning of that name. Words such as "druggie, alcoholic, mad, crazy, and legend". Although he made his mistakes in the past, like anybody else, we should all never forget the amazing footballer he once was.

I personally think director Jane Preston has done a wonderful job in this documentary by making us all remember the heroics on and off the pitch of the legend that is, Paul Gascoigne. With fitting tributes in this feature by the likes Gary Lineker, José Mourinho and Wayne Rooney all sharing their admiration of the talent Gazza is.

Gascoigne talks to the camera for the majority of this documentary as he speaks joyfully, fondly, happily and at times emotionally about his career. If you are a fan of football, a fan of Paul Gascoigne, a fan of sporting heroes, then I ensure you, this is a must-watch for you.