American Tragedy

So much has come out since Columbine that it's unbelievable to me that a 2019 documentary would act like there were "no warning signs."

Dylan was arrested multiple times before the shootings, his friends knew he was acquiring guns, and most importantly, the police knew that both Eric and Dylan were troubled youth.

There was a 2-year paper trail and even an instance where a teacher reported a story Dylan had wrote (about watching a madman shoot up a place) to the school, and the school spoke to him about it and dismissed it.

The tragedy of Columbine isn't that no one saw it coming but that everyone should have seen it coming. Eric documented things in meticulous detail on his public website that police had access to. He talked about physical evidence that they later found (pipe bombs). There was a search warrant made up for his house a few months before the shootings that the police never took to a judge.

They were both known to police, Eric's dad knew he was making bombs, and Dylan had also been in felony trouble to the extent that his room would have been searched by any reasonable parent.

They left blazing signs they were going to hurt someone, and everyone just ignored it.

It was significantly drawn out with a ton of unnecessary and super slow reenactments. While reenactments are fine and a typical part of stories like this, they are generally quick and to the point. That's not the case here and I lost interest less than halfway through. The story itself is interesting and deserves to be told but this missed the mark.

Sooo much talk about mental health, preventing suicide with mindfulness (!?) But not a word about two major problems in the US - gun control and bullying in schools! Why do school shootings only happen in the US??? I live in Europe, we don't have "active shooter-drills" in schools here.

If you're looking for a documentary about the Columbine Tragedy from Susan Klebold's perspective, this isn't it.

While she is open about certain aspects of her son's life, she is not an open book. I didnt expect anything new or enlightening, but I was interested in hearing her speak about their lives up until April 20. Unfortunately, it felt like the filmmakers used her name & the tragedy to market an 80 minute Public Service Announcement about their ideas on Mental Health.

While I appreciate the personal hell Sue Klebold had experienced, where was "Dad" in all this? Ignoring the role of the father, pretending that fathers have no bearing on the positive mental health of young men, will not get us to a place of enlightenment. Breathing exercises are not a substitute. If we're going to address this issue head on, then everything has to be included and this documentary is extremely insufficient in that regard. I believe Dylan's parents are divorced; what happened? Unfortunately, this documentary is painting an incomplete picture in that the male's influence is ignored.