CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Brian Camp As someone who remembers this case well, it's pretty sobering to be faced with these five men 23 years after the fact recounting their version of events that occurred when they were teens and hard not to feel sorry for them. Worse, one can't help but wonder how such a miscarriage of justice could have happened with everybody watching. All I can think is that these boys were handy scapegoats for a decade of out-of-control crime and violence in New York and they became sacrificial lambs. Somebody had to pay the price. These five just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, admittedly doing the wrong thing (running with a mob of teens committing random attacks on white joggers and bicyclists), and the cops needed convenient suspects who were young and vulnerable enough to be manipulated into confessing to the most serious crime that occurred that night. Their convictions and a handful of other high-profile incidents during the Dinkins administration paved the way for the election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor and a new era of proactive law enforcement and a relentless stop-and-frisk campaign aimed at black and Latino men in the city's poorer communities.Does the film make its case without flaws? No. The deck is too stacked. They should have allowed some representative of the police or D.A.'s office to explain themselves. Michael F. Armstrong, counsel for the NYPD, says he spent half-a-day being interviewed on camera for the film and was then not included in the final cut. Some attention should have been given to what these five boys were doing in the park that night and what other crimes they themselves might have been implicated in. Yes, they describe some acts they saw being committed by other boys and either outright deny their involvement or couch it in vague terms. I think it would have been good to know if the police had direct evidence of these boys' participation in other crimes that night. For one thing, it would mean these kids might not have been the saints they're made out to be, which of course doesn't justify false accusations and wrongful convictions, as the most vocal critics of this film seem to think, but it means recognizing a significant gray area here. If they actually did participate in the mob violence that night, some attention might have been usefully paid to the whole issue of how seemingly otherwise good kids from poor but stable homes with fathers present in their lives can get caught up in that kind of lawlessness.Also, more importantly, they should have had some expert on hand to address the whole phenomenon of false or coerced confessions and give their objective assessment of this particular case and perhaps give other known examples of established false confessions, just to provide some context and answer those critics who stand by the notion of absolute guilt based on confession. It's touched on in a couple of the interviews, but not by a recognized expert on the issue and not in any depth.Still, it's a powerful piece and has far fewer Ken Burns-style gimmicks than we see in his other films. He manages to stay out of his own way for much of the time and let the interview subjects have their say. Maybe that's a result of having directorial collaborators.

tomgillespie2002 Social injustice and the failure of the justice system has long been a favourite topic for documentary film-makers. It's been done to death, sometimes raising enough attention for the case that it leads directly or indirectly to releasing the incarcerated (The Thin Blue Line (1988), the Paradise Lost trilogy (1996-2011)), or exposes enough holes in the story to make you doubt the effectiveness of police interrogation and/or the legal system as a whole (Brother's Keeper (1992), Capturing the Friedmans (2003)). It's estimated that 10,000 innocent people go to jail every year, so naturally, this kind of thing keeps rearing it's ugly head, and it makes for riveting and gob-smacking viewing.The 'Central Park Five' are Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise, youths aged between 13-15 in 1989, who found themselves in the wrong place, in the wrong city, at the wrong time. Trisha Meili, a young jogger running through Central Park, New York, was viciously beaten, raped, and left for dead by Matias Reyes, a notorious rapist who confessed to the crime years later. The five boys were in a group of 30 or so others, some causing havoc and attacking people, when the police descended on them. Through long and intense interrogations, the five made false confessions to witnessing the crime, incriminating one another with the promise of being allowed to go home.The first hour of The Central Park Five is its finest. Ken Burns, directing here with his daughter Sarah and her husband David McMahon, is a historian at heart, digging out terrific archive footage of a city consumed by crime and racial tension, in the midst of the AIDS outbreak and the savage crack wars. The young boys, all black or Latino, were nothing but scapegoats for the NYPD, who were looking for a quick and tidy conviction. The brutal witch-hunt they suffered following their arrest, and the lazy role of the press - labelling the boys actions before the assault as 'wildings' and failing to do any real investigating of their own - is representative of the social and racial divide. This was a time when the city averaged six homicides a day.There is also a wealth of footage showing the boys' 'confessions', which are fascinating to see unravel. There is a special moment when Korey Wise is shown a picture of the victim's bruised and battered head, and the sound that leaves his mouth leaves you in doubt of his incapability of committing such an act. The second half of the film left me frustrated. There are no big, satisfying moments of anyone getting their just deserts, and the Five, now released from prison and cleared of guilt, shows a startling lack of bitterness to the ordeal they experienced. There's certainly a lack of anger to the film, both by those involved and the directors, and it leaves things a little cold. But perhaps that's the point, that reality really is that harsh, and closure is hard to come by.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

david-byrne A very well made documentary. It chronicles the entire event from the innocent youths being rounded up by the corrupt New York cops or prosecutor, to the mens' exoneration and beyond. It was well put together and the footage and newspaper articles were clearly represented. The victim interviews show them for what they are - innocent kids used as scapegoats and forced into confession for a crime they did not commit. The sense of injustice abounds, especially when the crooks in suits knew they had the wrong people, but went ahead with it anyway. It leaves one feeling angered and somewhat helpless, that you cannot defeat an enemy like the corrupt American justice system - especially when the system is proved wrong but refuses to show remorse or make amends, as so often happens (varies by state). The documentary leaves the city of New York as a city of shame, one where justice is corrupt, especially for blacks and Hispanics. I was left feeling that they could happily put a bullet in the head of the prosecutor and the cops as payment for their services rendered - but these men are more decent human beings than any of the prosecutor and the corrupt police, the media and anyone else who treated them as rapist monsters. Unfortunately, no compensation has been paid to any of the victims as the City of New York does its utmost to ensure justice will not be done. It needs to protect its wallet and the phony reputation of New York's "finest". I doubt I will ever want to visit New York, the city of shame.

Jacqueline Guzman First ,I would like to say that I have not watched this film, yet. I was privileged to know Mr. Raymond Santana in our teens. I also had an acquaintance with Mr. Salaam's younger brother in Isaac Newton Junior High School. When this happened, I never felt in my heart that it was true, or even possible from what I knew of these young men. I was shocked to hear of this film from my french professor in my college English class. I said to myself that this is so far from what these outside people live like, so they don't really understand the injustices afflicted upon minority men in the ghetto. I've always hated that this happened to my friend, but sadly I know it will still happen to many more young minority men. To all of my brothers: Please Be Careful! Educate Yourselves! Become Grandfathers :)