Al descubierto: El asesinato de Air McNair

So I am be a little late to this because I do not watch football and I am not much of a athlete so I do not know who Steve McNair was until I watched this documentary last night. I thought it was a really good documentary, especially if you did not know the story, as I did not. Steve was a very good quarterback with a very sharp mind in the football world. He was great at him prime and seemed to be very loved by the fans. But unfortunately his life was cut tragically short when he was murdered in 1999. Out of respect for his family, I will not voice my opinion on what happened because that's not my place. I think this is a very well put together documentary. The only thing I would say is there is maybe to much time spent on the game of football and less on the actual Murder investigation.

Talented NFL Quarterback Steve McNair becomes a superstar, and comes very close to winning the superbowl. His life is cut short however, when he is killed in 2009.

I hate to jump on the bandwagon, but this wasn't a particularly good documentary, for such a big story, it's just so poorly assembled. It's almost chaotic, it jumps about from one thing to another, and the pacing is somehow frantic.

Documentaries should be factual and informative, there must be a temptation to sensationalise them, and this one is guilty of that, it's too glossy, too heavily produced. Those interviews, come on, they're like scenes from a cheesy movie.

It certainly shows that McNair had a great life, halfway through I felt like I was watching a show about a saint, in reality he was an incredibly talented young man, who enjoyed the spotlight, and probably had a lot of fun.

That ending though, come on!!!

4/10.

I literally thought I'd missed something when the documentary ended. I was expecting additional episodes that would delve deeper into the other suspects and explain some of the twists and turns in the story. It was all surface. Netflix usually has great documentaries. I normally Google the person/people the documetary is about, if I am not familiar with them, in order to know who the key players are just in case the documentary doesnt. Netflix did a decent job at that, so I just changed my rating from one star to two stars. I'm glad I didn't Google him, as I would've learned everything the documentary was about beforehand and wouldve have been even more disappointed as I had wasted my time watching it. Perhaps this was created during the Writers Guild strike 😂

It's a 1 hour review of his murder, the investigation, and the outcome. They do flash back to tell the story of his playing days which is important context for those who didn't know how big he was. Don't most documentaries give the background of the person who was murdered? The investigation was not complex and there really wasn't much more to be said. They tried to throw in a little drama at the end, but I don't think there is much merit to that. If people want more information about that drama I think they were expecting a much less straight forward case. Some murders are simple and don't need 3-4 episodes to explain.

As "Untold: The Murder of Air McNair" (2024 release; 58 min.) opens, it is "July 4, 2009" and Robert Gaddy, longtime friend of Titans QB Steve McNair, calls 911 in distress upon finding 2 dead bodies at McNair's apartment in Nashville. We then go back in time to 1995 when Jeff Fisher, interim head Coach of the Houston Oilers, is named head coach period, and Steve McNair is drafted in the first round of the NFL draft by Houston. At this point we are less than 10 minutes into the documentary.

Couple of comments: of course I remembered that McNair was killed in 2009 but I didn't remember the exact circumstances of this horrible event. This documentary aims to dig into those exact circumstances. At net even an hour of running time, this felt less like an in-depth assessment of a tragic, and more like a sensational paparazzi piece. In this particular piece, it turns out that Jeff Fisher is one of the most pivotal talking heads. Bottom line: this could've been a truly interesting review of Steve McNair's life, but instead we receive something that is interested only in the sensational headlines, and not the deeper background.

"Untold: The Murder of Air McNair" recently started streaming on Netflix, and Netflix recommended it to me based on my viewing habits. If you are a fan of the NFL or a fan of true crime, I'd readily suggest you check this out, with tempered expectations, and draw your own conclusion.