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The Menendez Brothers (2024)

The Menendez Brothers (2024)

R

Though mostly just a rehash, the documentary offers exclusive insights from the Menendez Brothers and calls attention to male victims of abuse

7.1

Movie

United States of America
English
Crime, Documentary
2024
ALEJANDRO HARTMANN
Erik Menendez, Leslie Abramson, Lyle Menendez
116 min

TLDR

It’s worth watching if only to hear from the Menendez brothers themselves, 30 years after incarceration.

What it's about

Focusing on the legal aspect of the case, Netflix’s The Menendez Brothers pools previous jurors, attorneys, witnesses, experts, and—through exclusive phone calls—Erik and Lyle Menendez to recall that fateful night in 1996 and weigh in once more.

The take

More than anything, Netflix’s 116-minute Menendez Brothers documentary feels like a PR shield to protect the streamer against the onslaught of criticism its dramatized series (Ryan Murhphy’s Monsters) received. Netflix wants to have its cake and eat it too. If Monsters painted the brothers as evil and spoiled, The Menendez Brothers takes a more humane approach by shedding much-needed light on male sexual abuse. It also literally gives the brothers a voice by having their present-day selves, through exclusive phone calls, weigh in on the events that led to that fateful day they killed their parents, as well as on the heated legal proceedings themselves. The series is at its best when it focuses on the present (How are the brothers faring in prison? Why is this generation so passionate about protecting them?) and when it gives us a legal breakdown of the complicated case. Since many other documentaries about the brothers tend to focus on the scandal and psychology of such a case, it helps to see what went down in this new light, with input from the brothers no less.

What stands out

It’s both odd and heartening to see how public opinion has changed so drastically since the ‘90s. Now equipped with more tools to understand child and male sexual abuse, it does feel like the case will find new hope in this post-Me-Too world.

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