Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992

This documentary is fairly enthralling, and contains a lot of extremely useful information. It makes a good point of pointing out the shady decision making and terrible events that led up to the L.A Riots, and it really puts those events front and center. However, there are very odd editing choices made throughout the documentary that have the capability to throw the viewer out of the experience.

There are drops in audio, moments of complete silence, weird fades to black, interviews without names of who we are seeing talk to us, awkward breaks in the flow of conversation and in the flow of the entire documentary. The events and terrible choices and racially motivated hatred that led to these riots are important to know, and they are probably more important now then ever because we are still living with this systematic racism in our police across the US. However, the editing for this documentary leaves a lot to be desired.

This follows 10 years of events leading up the 1992 L.A. riots. It touches on the chokehold, Daryl Gates, the Olympics, the Rodney King beating, store keeper Mrs Du's killing of Latasha Harlins, and finally the not guilty verdict in the Rodney King trial.

It's 25 years later. The recent O.J. shows have reignited interest in the events of that era in L.A. The first half lays out the situation over that 10 years period. The second half recounts those harrowing days concentrating on a few stories including interviews with those convicted of the Reginald Denny beating. Bobby Green's calling from God is probably the most emotional moment. I certainly hope for a ray of light from the higher power in this darkest day. This is not an all-encompassing documentary of the event. It touches on most of the important issues and players in the story although it may not be the final word. It does bring the viewer back to those days of chaos.

For the most part, this is really good documentary filmmaking, with a slightly too long runtime and occasionally flawed editing holding it back (unless the abrupt cuts to black were intended to be there for commercial breaks, if this was a TV movie? Even then, it still could have felt smoother).

Funnily enough, the lead up to the protests/riots ends up being far more compelling, despite those events being comparatively less explosive. That may be a consequence of watching this after LA 1992, which I think is a slightly better film, and did a better job at showing - on a visceral level - the events in LA over those days in 1992.

Both are very much worth watching, though, and if you treated them as an exhausting double feature, you'd get a great recap of the history followed by a more cinematic (for lack of a better word) depiction of the aftermath of the Rodney King trial.

This was a superb documentary! The doc not only shows the LA riots but the events from the past decades leading up to it. It does a great job of presenting the various perspectives surrounding the era. I really recommend it!

11/15/17. This was actually a good documentary about a decade of unrest and chaos. Both sides get to tell their story, the black community that felt put upon by the police, and the police trying to do its job without offending the black community and the politicians. It was a sad time, but no sadder than it is today.