Rotten Potatoes … you know … it’s like Rotten Tomatoes except baring any legal copyright ramifications.
I had first heard of Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father from Dan Trachtenberg of the Totally Rad Show stating that the film had moved him to tears. Wow. To tears? Usually when I watch a documentary I usually end up in a momentary state of guilt followed up by apathy. So I was quite intrigued to check this out hoping it would be quite different from the norm of social commentary documentaries that I usually watch. The documentary had a limited run on MSNBC, but considering I only had basic cable I had to wait till it hit Netflix’s instant watch service before I could check it out.
In short, this documentary is about a man named Andrew Bagby who was murdered to which all signs pointed to his accused girlfriend, Shirley Turner. Shortly after fleeing to Canada, Shirley gives birth to Andrew’s son, Zachary. Kurt Kuenne, the director of the film and long time friend of Andrew Bagby decides to create a documentary as a letter to his son in hopes that Zachary can get a glimpse of what his father was like. The documentary tells of Kurt’s journey in interviewing Andrew’s colleague as well as following the grandparents of Zachary and their battle with gaining custody of Zach and their seemingly never ending struggle in the quagmire of the Canadian judicial system.
Despite its unique premise, I am still inclined to use a cliche that I often hear in movie reviews. I often hear the cliche of likening a movie viewing experience to a ride set on an emotional roller coaster, which I have chosen to shamelessly use in this review. However, to my credit, it’s not of the classical rolling bumps and hills of a roller coaster that many of us liken a roller coaster to; instead this film is edited in such a way that there are abrupt changes in mood. One second you feel elation and sense of warmth from the way Andrew’s colleagues and friends describe his life then the next split second you’re infuriated and caught up in the custody battle of Zachary. It’s more akin to a emotional roller coaster with abrupt cliffs. Despite the slew of emotions from seeing this movie, anger was the inevitable emotion that had overcome me by the end of the film.
As I have mentioned before, most of the time when I watch a documentary; particularly of the of the Michael Moore-esque, social, political, commentary style; I usually end up coming to an apathetic conclusion of “Gee that’s bad” or “Wow that sucks” then go about my good ol’ American way of life — buying SUVs, shopping at Wal-Mart, and playing violent video games. Then I saw this documentary which at the end proclaimed I should write a letter to Parliament to demand change. I was so angry by the time this documentary ended that I was about ready to write a scathing email to Parliament before calming down and realizing that the majority of the film took place in Canada and that the United States, much like the metric system, doesn’t do Parliament.
On a less serious note and instead of writing a letter, I have hatched a different plan. I am going to travel to the American-Canadian border and set up a trap by luring a Canadian judge across the border to American soil with the irresistible scent of Canadian bacon. I will then proceed to punch said Canadian Judge and flee to Canada knowing that in the event I am caught and charged with a crime, I will most likely spend the majority of my time out on bail due to a state of limbo in the ridiculously slow Canadian extradition process.
I give this documentary my recommendation and an arbitrary score of 3 USB thumb sticks up out of 2 dolphins — because as we know, the state of reviews on the Internet is that reviews require an empirical score.
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