THE SKYJACKER'S TALE: Jamie Kastner's fascinating update on a 1970s robbery/ massacre and a 1980s airplane hi-jacking

Giving you a plethora of opinions -- including that of the skyjacker himself (who now resides in Cuba) -- about an event that happened in the U.S. Virgin Islands decades ago and that resulted in lengthy prison sentences and finally the hijacking of an airplane during the following decade, THE SKYJACKER'S TALE is a crackerjack story that many of us may not recall, since that initial event happened "overseas," as it were, at one of those Caribbean Island paradises-for-the-wealthy-at-the-expense-of-the-locals.

Filmmaker Jamie Kastner, shown at right, does something that almost seems unusual in these days of take-your-side-and damn-well-stay-there politics and movie-making: He doesn't unduly push us to accept either the view of the skyjacker (Ishmael Labeet, aka Ismael Muslim Ali) or those of his antagonists, the police, politicians (one of whom is shown below) and investigators who rounded up the suspects and made damn sure they were found guilty by and via the powers-that-were back in the day.

The documentary is narrated for the most past by Mr. Labeet/Ali from his home in Cuba, the country to which he made certain that the hijacked plane was routed and where he has lived ever since 1982. (One of the number of small surprises that keep this film so interesting has to do with exactly where Labeet spent the first of his first years in Cuba, and how he felt about all this.)

Although the skyjacking itself made big news in the USA, it was the direct result of that Virgin Island robbery and murder of eight people a decade earlier that led to Labeet's actions on the plane. Once we learn some of the history of the "U.S." Virgin Islands (purchased from Denmark back in 1916), and of the robbery/massacre itself, so many questions arise about the procedures -- legal and otherwise -- used to first identify the perpetrators, obtain their confessions, and then take them to trial and sentencing that the documentary begins to seem like a kind of "prequel," Virgin Islands-style, to the later tale of The Central Park Five.

Sure, it's possible that Labeet (shown above, below and at bottom) and his pals were indeed the killers. But it is just as possible that they were not. and no effort seems to have been made, at any point, to find any other suspects. This, together with the lack of any real evidence of guilt provided by the authorities, is suspicious, to say the least. The movie also comes close to proving that the "confessions" were tortured out of the guys -- which would make them illegal in any normal U.S. court of law, which this Virgin Islands, with its lynch mob mentality, clearly was not. (The deep south, along with Black Lives Matter, will come to mind more than once during these "festivities.") The media, together with the help of the Islands' white overseers, pushed the massacre as a race issue (even though one of the eight killed was black), starting a typical wave of fear on the Islands -- oh, my god, we can't have anything draining our tourism -- so these men were caught/tried/sentenced/imprisoned in pretty much record time.

Listening to the testimony of so many of the "investigators," then and now, does not make one sense that seeking real justice was on anyone's mind. (One particular cop is clearly lying, as we learn by film's end.) On the other hand, Labeet himself does not push very hard to gain our sympathy. He, along with the filmmaker, tells his story quietly and compellingly but with no special pleading. He doesn't appear to care much whether we believe him or not. We also hear from Labeet's defense attorneys (that's Margaret Ratner Kunstler, below, the wife of another of his defense attorneys, the late William Kunstler) and these people seem quite a bit more reliable than does the prosecution.

Kastner, who earlier gave us that enjoyable doc, The Secret Disco Revolution, uses staged re-enactments of both the robbery/massacre and the airplane hijacking, and his capable handling of storytelling and actors would indicate that he might do well in the narrative mode, too. Meanwhile, we have this oddly fascinating movie to contend with. Although it is scheduled to open in our own Virgin Islands at the end of August, I can't imagine that it will be warmly embraced there -- at least not by the usual suspects. (You can read an early review from a Virgin Island newspaper here. By the way, the review gives away a spoiler that the filmmaker quite succulently saves for the very end.)

Hitting theaters via Strand Releasing and running just 76 minutes, The Skyjkacker's Tale arrives Friday, June 30, in New York City at the Village East Cinema; in New Orleans at the Zeitgeist Arts Center on July 7; and in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Monica Film Center on July 14. To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here, and then click on Screenings on the task bar halfway-or-more down-screen.

Ray Klonsky and Marc Lamy's DAVID & ME opens 8th annual Manhattan Film Festival at the Quad

The yearly Manhattan Film Festival will open its eighth run tomorrow at the Quad Cinema in New York City (click here for complete schedule and tickets). The only film TrustMovies has managed to see in advance is a worthwhile documentary entitled DAVID & ME that probes the so-called justice in our justice system, with emphasis on Brooklyn, NY -- a borough that has an increasingly disgusting record of forced confessions and wrongful convictions, to which this new documentary adds another nail in the coffin of former D.A. Charles Hynes' equally disgusting career. Unless, of course, that old phrase, "The fish stinks from the head" has no bearing here. Not that Brooklyn is alone is all this: See The Central Park Five to get a taste of Manhattan's contribution to injustice.

The film is the work of the Klonsky family up in Toronto, the father/son team of journalist Ken (above, left) and his offspring Ray (above, right). It was Ken who initially interested his son in the story of prison inmate David McCallum (shown at bottom) -- whom Ken thought to be innocent of the crime of murder for which David was convicted and for which he has already spent nearly 30 years behind bars. Ray himself was a troubled teen whom his father hoped to protect from getting any further involved in crime. When it came time to make the actual movie, Ray was joined by his friend Marc Lamy (shown below) and together they shot the doc.

Once Ray and David begin communicating via letters, a bond is formed that results in Ray's determination to see his friend freed. The more we learn about the original case, the less likely David's guilt appears. A forced confession (not difficult to achieve when your suspect is a boy of 16 years), witnesses who should have been called to testify (but weren't), mis-identification and lots of other either poor or deliberately bad investigation muddies up this sleazy case. Getting parole would mean that David must admit to the crime itself -- something he says he will never do, even if he must spend the rest of his life in prison.

The late Hurricane Carter (above), himself a wrongly convicted man, comes into the picture, trying, as well, to help David. We meet David's family and get to know them a little, as we hope along with them that something can be done to address the wrong committed here.

The movie itself is clearly a first-time venture for Klonsky and Lamy. Overall, there does not seem like quite enough content to fill even the 70 minutes the film lasts. The pacing occasionally lags and the content seems somewhat repetitive, while the back and forth between the Klonsky and McCallum families (the later is shown above), David himself (shown below and at bottom with Ray) and the ins-and-outs of the case appear a little scattershot. Health problems see to it that Mr. Carter soon withdraws from things, and the private detective who becomes involved can achieve little of the kind of headway needed to make real waves.

Still, the bare bones of David's case appear enough to turn thoughtful heads to his cause. But because we live in a society that does not make wrongful convictions at all easy to overturn (from birth, it seems, human beings should be trained to admit their mistakes), so far, injustice is still being served. This alone makes David & Me a must-see.

After appearing at the Hot Docs fest (where it was voted one of the top 20 films), the documentary plays the Quad tomorrow, Friday, June 20, at 7:15pm. Let's hope it will eventually be shown elsewhere, too.

On Netflix streaming, catch up with last year's most important documentary: Eugene Jarecki's THE HOUSE I LIVE IN (and its bonus material)

The injustice of our justice system's punishment of drug-related crimes is front and center in THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, the title of which, by the time the film ends, will have taken on several meanings. If the phrase "the war on drugs" sounds familiar to you, then you 're probably primed for this richly unfolding story of a nation that has gone too far. Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, who earlier gave us the fine documentaries Why We Fight and The Trials of Henry Kissinger, has, I think, topped even his own work with this film, showing us that the victims of this "drug war," as it is called, are our own citizens, most of the 99 per cent, whether in prison for unconscionably long terms, the families of those prisoners, or the rest of us who are paying for their often needless incarceration.

Mr. Jarecki's film (the man is shown at right) is all over the place, so it does take some time for his film to build. Yet along the way are to be found so many fascinating facts and ideas (along with the characters who give them to us) that anyone who cares about the future of our country will not be bored. From the differences in sentencing of convictions for powder and crack cocaine alone, the movie is eye-opening. But this is just a start. Jarecki is surprisingly evenhanded regarding prominent figures such as Richard Nixon, who began the war on drugs, noting that Nixon insisted on treatment as well as punishment for drug offenders. By the time we meet Kevin (I believe that is he, below) -- a man who's been given a mandatory life-without-parole for possession of three ounces of methamphetamine -- we can no longer look away from the screen nor close our ears to what everyone here is telling us -- from cops and judges to prisoners and their family members.

By the time one person notes that this drug war "is a holocaust in slow motion," you'll find it difficult to disagree because Jarecki has come at the situation from so many angles and via so many different people and professions that the big picture has no trouble emerging. We also see that this is not simply a race war, though this certainly does figure in, but primarily a class war -- as is more and more of what is going on today in these United States. As another person makes clear, "There will never emerge a shred of leadership that will change the situation, so caught up in the next election and raising money for campaigns are all our politicians."

As good as this film is, however, in demonstrating that we have a problem and what that problem is, it's the bonus material -- just over one hour of time and also available via Netflix streaming -- that actually offers an abundance of hope via some noticeably effective means of combating drugs without declaring this "war" on them and their users/sellers. The bonus material includes more time spent with the New Mexico Marshal (above) whom we meet in the film itself; a look at drugs in St. Albans, Vermont; how Providence, Rhode Island, shut down the drug markets by bringing the entire community into the picture; a video made on Anthony Johnson explaining the life of this young man prior to his sentencing; the story of Fontay, the drug dealer, and his neighborhood; an interview with Senator Jim Webb of Virginia regarding our broken criminal justice system; and the girl named Shanequa, whom we've seen only bits and pieces of in the film itself.

Taken together, the film and its bonus materials add up to 2 hours and 51 minutes of the most important documentary footage you'll be seeing anytime soon. The House I Live In, refers, among other things, to America itself -- as the final song sung by Paul Robson makes clear.

Amy Berg's WEST OF MEMPHIS gives us the still-unfolding story of the West Memphis 3

Though I can find no mention of Joe Berlinger and his Paradise Lost trilogy in the press materials for the new and latest film about the now-famous West Memphis Three and one of the most shocking, despicable and deliberate miscarriages of justice this fairly-wallowing-in-them country has seen -- and this takes place in the American South, where that wallowing takes on near-mythical proportions -- I must begin my review of Amy Berg's brilliant new documentary, WEST OF MEMPHIS, by simply acknowledging the debt that I believe she owes -- whether she has seen his films or not -- to Mr. Berlinger's trilogy: the award-winning Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996); Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000); and Paradise Lost: Purgatory (2011).

It was, after all, these three documentaries that helped get national -- hell, worldwide -- attention focused on this case and thus turned the West Memphis Three into a genuine and necessary cause celebre. However, Berlinger's threesome runs a total of 401 minutes -- nearly seven hours -- and also runs, it must be said, a bit downhill overall. Ms Berg's contribution (the filmmaker is shown at right) totals but 146 minutes (or around two and one-half hours) yet packs in just about everything we need to know and is suspenseful, shocking, exciting, frustrating and a whole lot more. That she is the better filmmaker, I have no doubt (see her earlier doc, Deliver Us From Evil, should verification be needed), though Berlinger (who has also made Crude and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is certainly no piker in the documentary game.

Even though I knew most of the WM3's story from those earlier films, because of Ms Berg's choice of what to show and how to put it together, along with some new evidence gathered, thanks to her producers (see below), I found myself fascinated all over again.

Briefly, the story goes like this: The bodies of three murdered, elementary school-age boys were found in a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. Almost immediately the local police arrested three teenagers (shown below) and started the prosecution of them -- based on "evidence," it turns out, that is not even up to the level of the word "flimsy." Yet the following year the three are convicted of murder, with one boy sentenced to death, another to life imprisonment and a third to a long prison term.

The co-producers (with Ms Berg) of this film may come as a surprise to some viewers: Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson of the Tolkien Ring cycle and the current Hobbit movie, along with many others. Their involvement and participation here is much more than mere movie celebrity stuff. The pair actually funded the WM3's defense investigation anonymously, which led to new evidence being uncovered, and were responsible for bringing Ms Berg aboard to make her movie, once that important evidence was found "not compelling" by the no-account judge who had presided over the original -- and laughable, were not so many innocent lives involved -- WM3 trial.

All this and so much more is laid out and laid bare in this model documentary: the marriage of the former high-schooler who is now a man, Damien Echols (below), who is to be executed for the murders; new suspects cropping us, one of which would appear to be the real murderer and yet is walking around a free man; the involvement of the Arkansas Supreme Court; and a final -- one hopes it is not the final -- twist that should set your teeth on permanent edge.

Nearly 50 real-life characters appear during the course of this docu-mentary, and damned if nearly all of them don't register strongly enough to be memorable in ways either noble or nasty (sometimes both). How you'll feel at the end of it all may produce a heady effect: angry, elated, spent. Ms Berg puts you through some heavy-duty paces that demand your consistent attention. The result is more than worth the effort. How this film was left off the "Oscar" shortlist (along with The Central Park Five -- another excellent film about a grievous injustice here in New York City) is one of those mysteries only the Academy could understand or countenance.

For myself, the gut feeling is dual: one one hand, to appreciate and mimic the motto that sits on the desk of Damien Echols' defense attorney: "Never, never, never give up"; on the other to avoid Arkansas at all costs -- at least until its citizens can do something about the uber-sleazy police, politicians and judges involved here. Work on that project may be underway as I write this - which is one reason, I suspect, that the filmmaker herself calls the film and its shocking tale "unfinished."

According to the press notes, Berg and her crew will continue to work with the defense and will update the film, pending the results of on-going investigative work. (Perhaps this alone makes the movie ineligible for "Oscar" consideration. Well then, fine: Awards are puny compared to the work and the results shown here.) So stay tuned, I guess, but first see this genuinely staggering movie by a very able, activist documentarian.

West of Memphis, from Sony Pictures Classics, opens Christmas Day 2012 in New York (Angelika Film Center and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center) and the Los Angeles area (Sundance Sunset Cinemas, and Laemmle's Playhouse 7 and Monica Four-plex). Starting in 2013, the film will make its way around the country. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled theaters, cities and dates. If even 1/100th of the audience that made Walsh and Jackson's Tolkein movies such hits turn out for this one, it will have the boffo success it so deserves.

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE: Burns, Burns & McMahon's expose of NY criminal injustice

One of the most shameful chapters (among those we know of, at least) involving New York City law enforcement is the story of the Central Park Five. It deserves to continue to haunt us gullible New Yorkers, the media that led us -- stupidly, racistly -- into our beliefs, and especially our criminal justice system, including the lying male detectives and the two women prosecutors who didn't have either the sense to look honestly at the case or the courage to say 'no' to what was happening.

Disgusting is too weak a word for what took place here -- the media circus that resulted from the rape and near-murder of a young woman jogging in Central Park; the coinage of "wilding," the supposed term that suddenly came into usage by the detectives on the case, due to a misunderstanding of the defendants' use of the words 'wild thing'; the "confessions" which, according to the boys, shown above, were coerced by those detectives; the complete lack of evidence linking the four fifteen-year-olds and one sixteen-year-old to the crime (what evidence there was indicated something quite other than what resulted in the case against the boys).

Noted documentarian Ken Burns (above, right), his daughter Sarah Burns (center) and her husband David McMahon (above, left) have collaborated on a new documentary, which they directed, wrote and produced, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE (based on Sarah's book about the event, published in 2011), that lays out the whole story. Their movie begins, oddly enough, with the confession (over a decade later) by the fellow who actually did the wretched deed and then backtracks to the beginning of the incident and to a New York City of the 1980s, about which newsman Jim Dwyer gives us a salutary walk down memory lane, while doing penance himself about how easily he bought into the detectives' story.

The movie works as social and cultural history as well as an expose. While psychologists and historians could spend much time parsing the facts as they are laid out here, seeing the boys (then) and the men they have now become is both enlightening and very nearly inspiring. They had families who stood by them (in most cases) and they were pretty good kids to begin with, it seems. That they have maintained their dignity and decency through all this is rather extraordinary, and that the Burnses and McMahon have told the Five's story as well as they have is more than encouraging.

A DVD of this documentary should be attached to any future resumes the five send out. They are heroes of sorts. Once they recanted that first, coerced confession, they never went back on their claim of innocence, refusing to cut deals and taking their prison time instead. Burns and crew have done a service to New York in showing us how this kind of thing can happen, as has newsman Dwyer, who offers the best reminder for law enforcement: "Everyone makes mistakes in their jobs. We all do." The point is to admit it, and move on. Unfortunately, that has yet to happen here.

Perhaps because a lawsuit against the city from three of the five is still unsettled, the filmmakers could get no interviews with those representing the prosecution. Yet this does not unbalance the film because that prosecution's case is presented rather thoroughly. So much so, in fact, that we can see and understand how woeful this, one of the worst rush-to-judgments of modern times, actually was.

The Central Park Five, from Sundance Selects and running 118 minutes, opens this Friday, November 23 -- in New York City at the IFC Center, Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Maysles Cinema; in the Los Angeles area, it will open on November 30 at Landmark's NuArt Theatre. Elsewhere? Not to worry: the film will begin its VOD availability on December 7.