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88While 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.
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60As it is, it's little more than an artful rehash -- which means that anyone who wants closure to the story, or to see justice truly served, will have to wait a little longer.
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91West of Memphis does nothing to displace its predecessor films as masterpieces of investigative filmmaking, but complements them as a riveting capstone to an epic and tragic tale.
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91Thanks to Jackson's involvement as a producer, Berg has time and access Berlinger and Sinofsky didn't, allowing expansion of whatever material that's repeated.
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75The movie leaves you feeling angry and frustrated anyway. And justice for all? Hardly.
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75A long documentary that's very hard to watch - at times, it's harrowing.
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75In a well-paced two and a half hours, Berg's film is an ambitious mixture of summary and fresh investigation.
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75It's a fine summation of this complicated story, one that focuses heavily on Echols and his sweeping declarations about the state of justice in Arkansas and America.
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75West of Memphis makes a lucid, absorbing contribution to an epic saga that Berlinger and Sinofsky first wrestled into an 18-year-long narrative that changed two lives and saved one. And it gives that epic an ending that's happy, sad, inspiring, infuriating, right and terribly wrong, all at the same time.
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90As with "The Central Park Five," you come away from the film impressed by the storytelling but enraged by the facts. It's outrageous that this kind of thing happens, but Berg does an outstanding job of showing us how it does.
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75A strong, blood-boiling documentary from director Amy Berg, who made the similarly fine "Deliver Us From Evil".
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100Do we need a fourth film? Yes, I think we do. If you only see one of them, this is the one to choose, because it has the benefit of hindsight.
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91The film casts a hypnotic spell all its own. It artfully sketches out the events for anyone who's coming in cold, but basically, its strategy is to take what we already know and go deeper.
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90Ms. Berg's film, which she wrote with Billy McMillin, tells the story with unprecedented clarity. She has a dramatist's eye for what was irretrievably lost-the innocent lives of the children, plus 18 years of three other innocent lives.
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85Although it's the fourth documentary about the West Memphis Three, West of Memphis doesn't feel superfluous. This bizarre case rates at least 18 documentaries - one for each year Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley spent in prison for murders they clearly didn't commit.
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70The film is inspiring because it has a semi-happy ending attached to a love story.
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40Certainly, the West Memphis 3 deserve more chances to detail how the justice system went nightmarishly awry. But take this as ultimately more personal journal than investigation.
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75On its own merits, though, West Of Memphis is a well-assembled, well-argued documentary that shows how America's advocacy model of trial law can lead to government representatives spinning stories they know are probably untrue, then using their authority to stand strong against any alternate theory, no matter how many millions of people believe it.
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80A gripping documentary.
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88This is a compelling and comprehensive guide to one of the most Kafkaesque crime stories in American history.
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Dec 19, 201275By taking a disturbing and sometimes conflicted look at the prejudices that led to the West Memphis Three's imprisonment, it asks murky questions about how people could get something so wrong for so long.
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Dec 18, 2012100That makes this the most rare of films: one that indisputably matters. And one that stuns.
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Dec 18, 201240Berlinger and Sinofksy merely suggested Hobbs might be responsible for the crime; Berg goes in for the kill, inconclusive evidence and docu-ethics be damned. The queasy certainty with which the filmmaker jumps to her conclusions, however, is all too reminiscent of the original prosecutors' zeal. It's hard to imagine how someone could study this case for so long and yet miss its most critical lesson.
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100Prepare to be shocked, disturbed, awed... and, if you expected justice to prevail at last, ultimately devastated.
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80Thorny, blood-boiling and finely made.
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Nov 25, 201280A superbly detailed account of a notorious miscarriage of justice and how it was gradually unravelled. It's a tad overlong, but the passion, skill and revelations on display will captivate you.
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Nov 25, 201290Amy Berg's clear, captivating, indignant film carves out its own significant place in criminal-justice cinema, makes new and startling revelations into the triple-murder mystery, and is visually spectacular to boot.
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