Waco: Madman or Messiah

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.....

The producers went to great lengths to condemn the Davidians, repeating many of the falsehoods and smears that were used to initiate this debacle in the first place but they also try hard to be sympathetic to the children.

Not once did they seem to seem to question the principle concern with this event - The government invented a reason to raid this group of people and then they shot them and burned them alive and for what?

The government deployed a troop of M2 Bradely Armoured Fighting Vehicles, AFV's against a bunch of families, helicopters, snipers, about a battalion sized element of government agents against a bunch of bible bashing families who appeared to have been no danger to anyone.

About the only genuine crime that seems to have been carried out by Koresh was that he may have had improper relations with teenage girls. Why on earth then was he not arrested and tried before a jury of his peers? When did raiding a property, shooting first, bringing in tanks and burning them all alive become a proportional response?

This event had great media coverage not just in the USA, in Portugal we had the opportunity to follow the siege on TV. I had 20 yo by that time, more or less the same age of most Branch Davidians, I followed it on the news and I can tell that this event stayed with me for all these years as one of the most dramatic and horrible things I have ever saw. I tried to watch the mini series but it´s not as gripping as this amazing documentary that doesn´t take sides and efficientely show us both sides with real people and real emotions and that can not be paired by any tv show. This is a great work from everyone involved and not an easy task for sure to bring up all of this memories with the survivors. Congratulations not just for the superior work but also for one thing that remains after two days of watching the doco, its a doubt...

What if?

10/10

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.