Waco: Madman or Messiah

The film features the voice of David Koresh "Vernon Wayne Howell" taken from 247 FBI tapes recorded during the siege.

You can still see the site where plaques are showing where you're standing, as the chapel area, the men's dormitory, and the vault.

The presentation is a tad more inclusive or has time to cover more history of David to the point that is more of visual biography. Some scenes are portrayed by actors as there was no way to be there filming. We get the meaning of the name "David Koresh" (and how to pronounce it.)

We now go into sound bite mode with various presenters that give about 10 seconds of information accompanied sometimes by cartoons.

A pretty good consistent and concise presenter is dick J. Reavis, a reporter for the Dallas Observer. Showing that the ATF needed to have a raid so they would look good for funding purposes. So, they designed "Operation Trojan Horse." This is supported by Keith Constantino of the ATF Raid Team.

You can tell how it is going to go when the ATF indiscriminately shot the dogs before even being greeted. Reminds me of The Wicked Witch of The West "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!"

Yep, everything is playing out as predicted. Phil Arnold (Bible Scholar) offers FBI help and we know their response.

Things heat up then we see "Viewer discretion is advised." Naturally, a Branch Davidian was criticized for saving one of the dogs the FBI did not get a chance to shoot in the beginning.

I remember this event well, shocking story, and it is good to see a doco like this that sits on the fence (to a point). This doco shows lots of stuff I had not seen before and the interviews with survivors from both sides made this for captivating viewing.

I am a Christian and know the Bible well enough to see and know that David Koresh was a false prophet/messiah, any one that knows or has read the Bible will know that God warns us about wolves in sheeps clothing, and David Koresh was just another one of them. Anyone that follows some one that claims he/she is the second coming of Christ should look at that person and compare them to Jesus, Jesus would not have multiple sexual relationships, Jesus would not drive around in a classic American muscle car, and I can come up with so many other points to show David Koresh was just another conman.

Now besides David Koresh being a fake, it does not take away the FBI/ATF got this completely wrong, they are directly responsible for the murder of many people. Watch Waco: The Rules of Engagement, as that clearly shows that the FBI/ATF murdered many people. Now I get it, the government wanted to check their weapons, check if David Koresh was having relationships with under age girls, and I agree they should have looked into what was happening, but the way they went about their jobs was as bad as you can go about it, causing the death of many children and people that were fooled by a madman, including several government agents.

Overall this 2 part doco is well done and shows both sides of the story. 10 out of 10.

For some reason IMDB shows I gave it a 1, I gave it a 10 out of 10 and is worth watching if you want to see the truth about the madman and the mistakes the FBI/ATF made.

Well,ive seen a few docus evolving the waco incident,and ive been quite shocked every time, but this docu were just explosive,very informational,two sided if not even more sided.whats true i shall not tell,but as a documentary it is chillingly well constructed,the use of music enticing,and the way everybody were able to speak for themselves,amazing.do whatch it if you dare,its a thrilling true happening......after all.....

When an apocalyptic cult arms themselves with a huge stockpile of automatic weapons, things are never likely to end well. Nonetheless, the siege of Waco, which ended in a terrible fire resulting in the death of David Koresh and sixt followers, might have turned out better, if not for the gung-ho attitude of the law enforcement agencies. That's the take home message from 'Waco: Madman or Messiah', a documentary which reconstructs the events with the aid of testimony from witnesses and survivors. In places it's repetitive, and it would have benefitted from the participation of more senior members of the authorities to justify their decision making - it feels as if that part of the story is missing. One thing that's amazing is that several of the latter remain faithful to their former leader, even though he seems to have been a monster with no conventionally redeeming qualities, beyond, of course, his claim to be God. The broader message is the tragedy of a highly-armed society: the United States has no monopoly on lunactics, but there is something uniquely American about this story.

Meandering mess with an aimless narrative that finds you losing interest too easily. There is some insight but it's far too loose to be truly gripping.