The Thin Blue Line

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Runtime: 103 minutes

Directed by: Errol Morris

Starring: This is a documentary

From: American Playhouse

Here is something I watched earlier in the month and I saved it for when I needed it, which happens to be now due to my schedule. Tomorrow I should finally be able to watch something I've been wanting to watch in full for a few days now.

Surprisingly I had not watched an Errol Morris film before given that he's a documentarian and I enjoy documentaries, and this film in particular is true crime stuff and starting in college I got interested in true crime shows like what they used to show on the old CourtTV before they changed into TruTV and became all about the worst/most loathsome “reality” TV programs, and now you can find on Investigation Discovery or if you don't have that tier of cable you can at least see on network TV with Dateline NBC or 48 Hours. This movie does a similar thing way ahead of its time.

To copy and paste the plot from IMDb: Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas, Texas. Briefly, a drifter (Randall Adams) ran out of gas and was picked up by a 16-year-old runaway (David Harris). Later that night, they drank some beer, smoked some marijuana, and went to the movies. Then, their stories diverged. Adams claimed that he left for his motel, where he was staying with his brother, and went to sleep. Harris, however, said that they were stopped by police late that night, and Adams suddenly shot the officer approaching their car. The film shows the audience the evidence gathered by the police, who were under extreme pressure to clear the case. It strongly makes a point that the circumstantial evidence was very flimsy. In fact, it becomes apparent that Harris was a much more likely suspect and was in the middle of a crime spree...

Yeah, that's about right in terms of the plot. You also find out that a big reason why Adams was fingered instead of Harris is because the latter was only 16 and thus couldn't be executed if convicted for murdering a police officer. The movie demonstrates how the case against Adams was full of holes and yet he was convicted of the crime in the late 70's. Various people are interviewed and basically due to them blabbering on you can see how the big witnesses that helped convict Adams were not quite as convincing as you first thought. Overall the prosecution's case was rather weak as you'll see.

Sure, having a music score to everything is a little wacky, and so are some aspects of the reenactments, but in full if you enjoy those true crime shows that I talked about at the beginning then you should enjoy this, something ahead of its time and always engrossing. I also need to check out some more docu's from Morris. I'll be back Wednesday night.