The documentary on the Menendez brothers leaves a bad taste in the mouth
The names Lyle and Erik Menendez have been on everyone’s lips since the series “Monsters” was released on Netflix. The two brothers sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 for the murder of their own parents José and Kitty Menendez have become, in fact, two of the most popular characters of the moment, sparking a heated debate on the topic of male sexual abuse which is becoming increasingly greater and it seems to have even led to a turning point in the Menendez case which could lead to the two killers having their sentences reduced or, as Ryan Murphy himself, creator of the series, said, “getting out of prison by Christmas”.
Everyone seems to have their own opinion on the Menendez case after watching Ryan Murphy’s series where, remember, the story of how Lyle and Erik killed their parents was told in the form of narrative fiction with two actors, Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch , who played the roles of the two brothers from Beverly Hills respectively. And now, just two weeks after the debut of the series, Netflix has decided to return to focusing everything on the brothers who at the age of 21 or 18 killed their parents in cold blood by shooting them several times with a rifle in their villa, with a docufilm “The Menendez Brothers”, available from October 7, where, to tell their version of the facts, only Lyle and Erik themselves together with many of the people involved in the trial and in this terrible story.
It is not the first time that Netflix has proceeded with this modus operandi of first proposing a fictionalized true crime series and shortly after a documentary on the same theme. It happened with the Dahmer series about the cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer and then again with the film The Good Doctor about the killer nurse Charlie Cullen. Likewise, the one about the Menendez brothers is a docufilm with which Netflix wanted to give a true crime story a different point of view to push the viewer to ask themselves what their opinion on the facts is based on more tools and more information.
But does this happen with Alejandro Hartmann’s docufilm on the story of Lyle and Erik Menendez? Is this really an objective story that gives space to the different parts in a balanced and not unbalanced way? Or is it a documentary film for the Menendez brothers who now seem to have become more celebrities than murderers? Watching it we had the impression that this documentary is decidedly biased and for this reason not all that enjoyable. And the side on which the balance tips the most is that of Lyle and Erik.
According to how the facts are presented to us, reconstructed going back and forth in time, it is as if the director wanted to give a certain humanity to the Menendez brothers, justify in a certain sense their atrocious actions, focusing heavily on the debate linked to the sexual abuse they suffered. , a topic that has never actually been tried but which nowadays is having a very strong impact on the public, especially very young people. And it is no coincidence that at the end of the film a series of videos on TikTok is shown where many young people come to the defense of Lyle and Erik and even ask for their release as victims of abuse.
A bit like what happened with the series on Yara Gambirasio, with this docufilm on the Menendez brothers it is as if they were trying to defend the brothers or insinuate doubt about the actual guilt of two people who, it must be remembered, the American judicial system has already convicted 28 years ago.
Thus, at the end of the viewing, one has the bitter awareness that, nowadays, public opinion is easily manipulated and what goes viral on social media seems to have more importance than what justice itself says.
Rating: 6.5