Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
None
Directed By:
Errol Morris
I know what you're thinking. This doesn't have anything to do with the other movie, THE THIN RED LINE, who hit the theaters about ten years later. It could've, because the Terence Mallick movie is based on James Jones' novel, which came out in 1962. But it didn't. "The Thin Blue Line" is a colloquial term for the police. From a bird's eye view, they are a thin blue line of people that separates chaos from order. Or so we wish to think. One of the first things that has draw me into crime fiction is the inconsistencies in between the concepts of "justice" and "law". It's a common instinct, when having legal problems, to turn down off-court settlement and wanting to solve things before a judge. This way, things are clearer and there's gonna be no under-the-counter maneuvers. Well, that's a huge misconception. Justice and law are two very different things and Errol Morris' breakout documentary THE THIN BLUE LINE explores the very nature of this dichotomy.
Somebody crossed the thin blue line on November 28th, 1976 and gunned down Officer Robert W. Wood near Dallas, Texas. Now that's a crime that cannot stay without culprit for very long. Not in Texas. The police arrested Randall Dale Adams, a twenty-eight years old drifter from Ohio, who apparently owned the car that was seeing fleeing from the scene. I know huh? How noir of a setup? What followed is really more of a John-Grisham courtroom drama type, though. The main witness is David Ray Harris, a sixteen years old kid who claimed to his friends that he committed the crime and who actually would be the prime suspect. The only problem is, he's a minor. That mean's he can't receive death penalty in Texas. Not that I want to judge Texas (I don't know much about that state), but the justice system over there goes OUT OF ITS FUCKING WAY to incriminate Adams and put him on death row. Leaving the probable killer free.
The movie itself is very simple, in the trademark style of Errol Morris. What makes it stand out (and also painfully slow) is that it's like a police investigation and the viewer is the detective. All Morris does is to interview every protagonist of the case and asks them to tell their side of the story. Then he splices the testimonies with dramatic reenactments (that feel very dated) and a little bit of explanation, but for most of the movie, you're doing all the work. It's very invigorating, but listening to a dozen of people mumbling with a heavy southern accent (without subtitles) was sometimes very heavy. Especially that this case could have been a lot more simpler if law enforcement would have played their cards straight and would've went after David Ray Harris. Morris identified five witnesses who committed perjury, including a very shady couple that popped up from nowhere including a neurotic girl who watches a lot of police procedural shows and courtroom dramas. I spent my time in between outrage and discouragement towards mankind.
In this particular case, correct police work and legal investigation could have also saved David Ray Harris' life. Granted that he was a cold-blooded killer in the league of Perry Smith (he practically admits the murder on audio tape at the end), an incarceration at sixteen would have prevented him from killing Mark Walker Mays (here you go, another life saved) and he wouldn't have tapped the needle in 2004 because of it. The Robert W. Wood murder case cost two lives more than it should've and surely messed up Randall Dale Adams' existence more than it already was. Errol Morris' investigation is very thorough and empowering for the viewer, but it didn't end up stressing out what he wanted to (to make Adams free and clear of any doubt). THE THIN BLUE LINE is about the corroded nature of the law of men. Nobody went after David Ray Harris for the Robert W. Wood murder, because they couldn't kill him. Law enforcement wanted someone on death row for this murder and not a killer behind bars. A very solid documentary, if a little overly methodical.
SCORE: 81%